Trading Heartbeats
by bravevulnerability
Summary: "Detective Castle, this is Katherine Beckett, famous mystery novelist with 26 bestsellers to date, perhaps 27 soon if this all works out. And your shadow for the foreseeable future." AU.
1. Chapter 1

The door to the tiny bookstore jingles as he pushes his way inside, the comforting aroma of coffee and pages old and new rushing to greet him. Marie, the older woman who is always stationed at the register, waves to him and he nods his greeting with a tight smile, hoping to avoid conversation this time, and heads straight for the mystery section near the back of the building. It's been a long day, the case he and the boys spent a full week working weighing heavy on his shoulders despite the fact that they caught the guy. The teenage girl that was murdered is still dead, a family is still in shambles, and his chest feels hollow with grief. Losing himself in a fictional world for the night sounds most appealing.

He would probably have an easier time finding the novel he's searching for if he headed to a larger location, like the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue or St. Mark's bookshop on East 3rd street, but he's been coming to the cozy little independent bookstore for months now and it's always so calming, so quiet, and closer to his apartment – an easy stop on his way home from the precinct. He'd prefer this place over a crowded shop in the middle of the city any day.

"Hey Marie," he calls over the row of shelves to the woman at the register he's grown to know quite well from his frequent visits. "Do you have the new Collette Stryker book in yet?"

He listens to the sound of typing and rustling papers.

"Unfortunately not, honey. But I think they're coming in today."

Richard Castle huffs and rests his head against the worn wood of the shelf. Katherine Beckett's new bestseller had come out last week, but he knows this store tends to receive the newer materials later than the national chain places. Still, he's impatient to get his hands on a copy, to know if the rumors from the fansites are true and she really killed off Collette.

He hopes they're wrong.

"You know," Marie says as she rounds the shelf he's been pouting against. "It's okay if you go to a real bookstore every once in awhile. I would eventually forgive you."

He chuckles at the understanding wink she offers him and shakes his head.

"I can wait a few more days, it's fine."

"I know you must be exhausted, but maybe you could stick around," Marie suggests. "The friend of mine who delivers the Stryker series to me every year promised to have them here within the next hour."

Rick chews on his lower lip as he glances down to his wristwatch. He really has no other plans for tonight other than to relax at home, another hour wouldn't hurt.

"Sure, do you mind if I have a cup of coffee?"

"Help yourself."

Castle migrates towards the fancy new coffee maker Marie's husband, George, had splurged on last week, transferring to the opposite side of the counter while Marie returns to her place near the computer. He's barely made himself a cup of steaming black coffee and taken a sip from his mug when the cheerful ringing of the bell on the door indicates the arrival of another customer.

"Hey Marie, sorry I'm late."

Castle swallows hard and nearly burns the roof of his mouth at the sight of the woman striding inside, a familiar stack of books cradled in her arms. He's never been one to get starry-eyed over a woman, but he's quite fond of this one even though he's never met her.

"Not a problem, Katie. Thanks so much for bringing these by," Marie beams as Katherine Beckett sets the stack on the counter. "You've got a fan by the way, he's been waiting all week for me to finally have your books on my shelves."

The writer's head whips towards him and he doesn't think he's ever blushed so hard in his entire life, but she only smiles, snagging one of the books from the counter and coming towards him.

"Hi, I'm Kate," she greets, sticking her hand out for him. He takes it after only a moment of hesitation, suppressing the startle evoked by the odd jolt that slithers up his arm. By the way her lips part for just a moment, the flecks of gold sprinkled through her irises sparking, he swears she must have felt it too, but Kate recovers quickly and opens the book in her arm.

"So to whom do I make it out to?" she asks, retrieving a pen from the cup of writing utensils Marie keeps on the counter.

"Castle - Richard."

Her eyebrows quirk, amusement shimmering like sunlight in the forest of greens and browns as she glances up to him.

"Is Rick okay?" He nods, watching the swirl and sway of her hand as she scribbles over the page. "Castle, though… I like that. Has a nice ring to it."

"Thanks," he murmurs as she closes the book and offers it up to him, another hint of electricity tickling his fingertips when they brush hers.

Kate's eyes dart to the floor for a moment, something akin to shyness flirting along the lines of her face, but her expression changes when she catches sight of something near his abdomen.

"Is that real?"

His eyes follow her gaze, down to the badge attached to his hip. Most women tend to cringe at his job, not wanting to be involved with someone so expendable, so unavailable, but Kate Beckett looks eager.

"Yeah, I'm a detective."

Her eyes brighten with intrigue, those golden sparks illuminating the mixture of emerald and amber.

"I wish I'd known you while I was writing that," she muses, tilting her head to the book in his hands. "I bet you could have helped me improve the authenticity."

"I think you've done a great job in the past," he offers up, enjoying the bashful smile that spreads across her lips.

He doesn't consider himself a fan of anything more than her writing, the genre, but he has seen Kate in the papers, has also caught a few of her televised interviews, and despite her status, the fame and the fortune, she's never struck him as the diva tabloids have attempted to paint her as. She's seemed uncomfortable in front of cameras, shy like she appears now under even the slightest hint of praise. And she definitely isn't portraying any kind of arrogance while she stands in front of him in a modest bookstore he would never expect a bestselling author to step foot in.

"Thank you, that means a lot coming from a cop. I'm actually surprised you like them," she comments, propping her hip against the counter.

"Why's that?"

"Well, from experience, I've learned that most cops prefer to spend their free time away from the subject of murder."

He shrugs, mimicking her and leaning against the counter, noticing the not so subtle smirk Marie is wearing as she watches them.

"I think your books are… refreshing. At least in your stories, justice is always served. Not something that always happens in real life."

Something dark flickers in her eyes, a sadness he doesn't understand, but she still smiles at him, still leans in just a little too close to be considered appropriate for two strangers.

"Detective Castle, are you free tomorrow night?"

His throat constricts for a moment, his tongue turning to a dead weight in his mouth. It sounds like she's about to ask him out and he doesn't date to begin with, but he's definitely not the right kind of person for a woman like Kate Beckett to be dating. She's smart, successful, well put together, and he's… well, he's damaged. Broken and raw with wounds still weeping.

"Didn't you mention you would be off work tomorrow night, Richard? He closed a big case today I believe," Marie chirps and he shoots her the most menacing glare he can manage when Kate's attention is focused on the other woman.

Marie reminds him too much of his mother, which is probably the main reason he's frequented her store for so long. He's tried to convince himself that he does not miss Martha Rodgers, that they're better off keeping out of contact, but sometimes… sometimes he wishes he could apologize for that fight that pushed her out of his life for good.

"Well, Rick, if you're going to say no, I hope you weren't intending to use work as an excuse," Kate smirks, her eyes dancing with a playfulness that he hasn't experienced in so long. A foreign flare of longing spreads inside his chest, a yearning for the light in her eyes, for the warmth she exudes, and he already wants to wrap himself up in her, forget all of the darkness, the grief and sorrow he carries like chains around his ankles in favor of her.

But no, he shouldn't...

"I'm free," he finally replies, watching the pearls of her teeth close over the tender flesh of her upturned bottom lip.

"Great. Well, my number is in your book. I have to go, but call me tonight. We'll work out the details."

He resists the sudden and fierce urge to flip the book open and read the words, the numbers, she's scrawled inside, offering her a tight nod instead. He's already in over his head with her, he just knows it.

"Have a nice night, Detective," she grins, winking to him over her shoulder as she pivots, waving to Marie on her way out.

"Bye Katie, tell your father I said hi."

"Will do," she answers, smiling fondly at the older woman, whom he's now tempted to grill about how she's known Kate Beckett this whole time and failed to tell him about it. "Let me know if you need any more signed copies of the book."

Kate throws one last saucy grin at him over her shoulder before she exits the store and disappears down the sidewalk, taking his breath right along with her.

"Glad you waited around, aren't you?" Marie teases him, but he's still staring at the glass door Kate just walked out of.

"Yeah," he murmurs, forcing his eyes downwards and tracing his fingers over the glossy cover of the book in his hands. "Definitely worth waiting for."

He can't believe he just agreed to a date with his favorite author.


	2. Chapter 2

Rick has to cancel his date with his favorite author and he's surprisingly more disappointed than he thought he would be.

He had called Kate the night after their run in at Marie's bookstore and they hadn't had the chance to talk long, but they had agreed on a time and place and he had stupidly begun looking forward to it. For the last twenty-four hours, Kate Beckett has consumed his thoughts, the intriguing color of her eyes and the pleasant curl of her smile flashing behind his closed eyelids as he'd drifted to sleep and distracting him throughout his work day. His excitement to see her again had grown like a storm of bees in his stomach, always present, always buzzing, even when they caught a case.

A case he thought they would have wrapped by the end of the day with ease, but the murder of a woman found stuffed inside a safe in her own home has become more complicated than his team could have anticipated, Susan Delgado's murder turning out to be linked to a string of others, and as the dead ends continued to arise, those pleasant little bees began to die, leaving welts along the inside of his abdomen and venom swirling through the pit of his stomach, stinging their way to execution. He could never ask to take the night off, even if he did believe the boys could handle it on their own.

He couldn't let down the daughter of Susan Delgado, whom he had promised to find justice for. He couldn't cut out in the middle of a case he was already so wholly invested in. Not even for Kate Beckett.

Unfortunately.

So during his extremely late lunch break on the Friday he's supposed to be taking Kate to dinner, Castle steps out of the bullpen and into the privacy of the break room to call her with the bad news.

"Detective Castle," she greets, her voice a welcome sound amidst the hustle and bustle of the bullpen. He hasn't had a chance to talk to her much since they had scheduled their date, but he's been texting more than he ever has in his life over the last twelve hours. She's funny, he's learned. Clever and witty, evoking idiotic smiles aimed at his phone with words on a screen he can picture her saying aloud so clearly. But finally hearing her voice again is so much sweeter than reading it on a cracked iPhone screen. "You're calling me three hours before you're supposed to be picking me up for dinner. I'm sensing something's come up?"

Rick sighs and leans against the wall, pressing one of his knuckles into his eye sockets. "I'm sorry, Kate. There's a case and I just... I can't cut out on it."

She doesn't reply right away, but he can picture her disappointment too clearly through her brief silence.

"Hey, it's okay," she murmurs, her tone shifting into one of understanding. "Part of the job, right? We can just reschedule."

"Actually… actually, I don't think we should."

His mother used to tell him that he became self-destructive after he lost Alexis. She would insist that he feared happiness, that he would never experience it because he purposely ruined every positive opportunity that came his way.

 _It's self-sabotage, Richard. You don't want to be happy anymore so you ensure that you never will be._

"Why?"

Listening to Kate Beckett utter that single syllable with so much confusion and a hint of hurt causes him to believe that maybe his mother was right all along. He can't be happy; he doesn't deserve to be happy.

"I just don't think it's a good idea," he hedges, staring at the empty coffee mug in the sink.

"I still think it would be a fantastic idea," she throws back, strained hope in her voice, and he feels like such a jerk.

"It wouldn't work," he states with finality. "Just - trust me."

"Rick, wait. Don't just-"

Esposito catches his attention through the open blinds, waving a file at him, and Castle nods at his colleague in understanding.

"I'm sorry, Kate. I really have to get back to work now," he murmurs, ending the call before she can protest and silencing his phone as he shoves it back in the pocket of his slacks.

Guilt gnaws at him for the rest of the day, but he continues to remind himself that he's doing the right thing and saving them both a lot of time, probably a bit of heartache too. She's a celebrity, what was he even thinking considering taking her on a date? She may not be a diva, but they're still from two different worlds, and she doesn't belong in his.

* * *

Kate plops down on the foot of her bed and pulls her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on the plated bones and frowning at the open entryway of the closet. She had been trying to decide on an outfit for the evening when he had called and cancelled on her.

The rejection swarming her chest shouldn't feel so strong, but Richard Castle had intrigued her, the first man to hold her interest in such a long time, to make her heart trip and flutter in the most unwelcome of ways, and after talking to him on the phone and through text messages since their meeting at Marie's bookstore yesterday, she had really started to like him. And she had thought that he had liked her back.

Stupid. So stupid of her to hope for something real for a change, especially with a man whose eyes looked haunted with a million memories that have swallowed him whole. They'd likely swallow her too, and he seems to realize that already, smothering the spark between them before it can bloom into a flame. He was doing her a favor, really.

But she still wants the reason behind the phantom grief in those cobalt eyes; she wants his story. Badly.

Kate huffs, rises from the bed, and ventures back to her walk in closet. The disappointment of being turned down by a guy for no valid reason stings, but she refuses to let it ruin the rare, excited mood she had been in before Rick had called and etched what felt like a permanent frown onto her lips. She can still go out tonight, she can still have a good time all on her own. At least, she can try.

Her phone is still in her grasp and she swipes her thumb over the screen, bringing her recent calls list to life. She doesn't hesitate as she taps on her agent's number, raises the phone to her ear and scans her eyes along the rows of clothing, lingering on the gowns hanging near the back and the shelf atop that section of her closet as the ringing drawls on.

"Hey Paula," she greets in a forced but vivacious tone once her agent answers, lifting on her toes to reach for one of the long white boxes on the top shelf. "Remember that charity event I declined attendance to? Think you can get me back on the list?"

* * *

Castle tugs uncomfortably at the bow tie around his neck, the stupid strip of fabric making him feel constricted and choked, and Ryan bats at his hands.

"Man, you need to get a woman for this," his colleague sighs, adjusting the sleek black tie to sit straight and comfortably at the middle of his collar. "I thought you had a date tonight."

Rick cuts his eyes to the other man in the locker room mirror. "I never mentioned-"

"Why else would you be looking at your phone with goo-goo eyes all day?" Ryan questions with a smug grin while he shrugs on his suit jacket. Castle and Ryan would be the eyes inside of this charity event operation that was a little too last minute for his liking while Esposito played security on the outside, but Rick suddenly wished his other partner was going in with him now. Esposito didn't care so much about his personal life. "At least, you did until you made that call in the break room."

"I cancelled on her, Kev," Castle relents on a huff, watching with annoyance as Ryan shakes his head.

"You know Espo and I could have handled this. You didn't have to-"

"Are you ready to go? Because I'm ready to go," Castle mutters, pushing past Ryan and striding out of the men's locker room, back to the lobby where Esposito's already waiting.

"Hey boss, what's the matter? Ryan taking too long getting pretty?" Espo teases, earning a hard punch to the shoulder from Ryan, who's never far behind.

"I'm just ready to get this over with, do we have everything?" Castle asks, shoving the lobby doors to the Twelfth open and stepping out into the cool darkness of the night, taking a deep breath of the crisp, November air, allowing it to clear his head.

"All in the car," Esposito confirms, falling into step on his right while Ryan takes his left. They're a good team, the three of them. Montgomery's always found amusement in referring to them as the 'Three Musketeers', and despite the teasing and irritation the men currently flanking him can both cause, there are no two people he trusts more with his life.

The ride to the charity ball is mostly silent aside from the hum of the radio and a brief recounting of their mission. Get in, catch the suspect in the act, make an arrest, and get out. All without drawing too much attention to themselves. Though, rarely do things go that smoothly. It doesn't help that Rick isn't feeling very confident about this assignment. He's admittedly become a bit of a control freak over the years, especially when it comes to his work as a detective, and it's out of his comfort zone to be going in on an operation with so little time to plan, to go over every possible backup plan and discussing every potential scenario – both good and bad.

The staff are aware of the NYPD's operation thanks to Montgomery and his vast extent of favors and friends in high places, so once they arrive at the gala for the Metropolitan American Dance Theater, Ryan and Castle slip in through the back entrance where catering is parked while Esposito blends in with the herd of security huddled in the front.

"You take north and east sections of the place, I'll cover south and west, we'll meet back here in two hours if this entire thing turns out to be a bust," Castle murmurs to Ryan just before they can merge with the crowd of well-dressed donors and fundraiser attendees.

Ryan nods and straightens his jacket before sauntering into the crowd, easily fitting in as he makes his way to the bar to gain a clear vantage point of the ballroom. Castle heads in the opposite direction, scanning his eyes over the crowd of wealthy men and women dressed in perfectly fitted tuxes and shimmering gowns. He searches for sets of jewels that matched the quality of Susan Delgado's, noting with sinking realization that this may be harder than he thought.

The donors of tonight's charity, like Delgado had once been, will be wearing the most expensive jewels, exactly what the thieves would go for, and he had spent hours beforehand studying their victim's jewelry, poring over each necklace, bracelet, or set of earrings stolen, but that didn't make him an expert on the exact style he was looking for or how to tell the real from the costume jewelry. He's about to use his earpiece to radio Ryan with this minor dilemma, but he pauses with his hand midair as the sight of a woman in a red dress catches his eye.

The style of her gown is different from the rest, less modern fashion, more of a classic elegance, adorned with sparkling gold beading and a strapless bustier top that laces down her spine like a corset, highlighting the sculpted bones of her shoulders, her collarbones, and accentuating a toned figure he's taken note of once before.

As if feeling his eyes on her, the woman turns, soft chestnut curls spilling over the bare curve of her shoulder as she meets his gaze, piercing hazel eyes flashing gold with recognition that quickly shifts to darkened, amber irritation. But his heart is too busy crumbling and exalting in unison at the vision of Kate Beckett, radiant in the dimmed lighting of the ballroom, and even as he feels every ounce of concentration drain from his body the second he's drawn towards her, he doesn't try to stop himself.

That is, until he notices the jewelry she's wearing. That sends him stumbling in his tracks.

The sparkling set of delicate jewels decorating Kate's neck cause his stomach to churn. She fits the profile of what their thieves would want, he recognizes that immediately and with no trouble, the target dangling from her throat. He may not be an expert, but he does know Katherine Beckett is wealthy and he would bet the jewels around her neck are far from costume.


	3. Chapter 3

Kate's eyes have turned to slits, narrowed and assessing, and he can already see she's struggling with the decision of ignoring him, giving him the cold shoulder for his uncalled for cancellation earlier, and striding towards him, convincing him to take another chance. He doesn't give her the time to decide, eliminating the few steps of distance between them until he's standing before her, offering her his hand.

"C'mon Kate," he smirks, hoping it smothers the flare of panic he feels inside, but she crosses her arms and arches an eyebrow at his outstretched hand. "Just one dance."

"Thought you had to work, Detective," she bites out with a false smile, but he doesn't retract his open palm and her eyes roll, her lips muttering something unkind under her breath before she relents and accepts his hand.

A sigh of relief leaves his lungs. She may be a target now, may have eyes on her in this very moment, but they'll have to get through him if they want her and he might as well be an impenetrable force while she's in his arms.

And oh, that's bad. Already, he's protective of her, in a way that is fierce and roaring and far stronger than his duty to protect civilians, far too strong for a woman he hasn't even known for a full day.

Not good, Rick. So not good.

"Also thought associating with me was apparently a bad idea, Castle," she murmurs as he guides her away from the sidelines and onto the ballroom floor. And yes, she's right, very bad idea.

"Oh, it is, but so is you blowing my cover."

"Cover?" she whispers, but her eyes are alight with intrigue now and he _really_ should not be discussing a case with a civilian, especially _this_ particular civilian.

"Undercover, we're trying to lure our suspect out," he explains, his lips brushing her ear as he whispers the words.

Her face turns towards him, nose brushing his cheek.

"How?" she murmurs, the fingers curled around his neck venturing into his hair, toying with the silk strands at his nape and shit, she's already too good at this.

He swallows past the sensation of her touch, her scent – every part of her so overwhelming – and scans the room again, searching for eyes that roam with the same intent as his, for jewels that sparkle in time with the glimmering curtains of crystals decorating the walls.

"By seeing who may be wearing the most extravagant jewels," he explains, absentmindedly fitting his fingers between the strips of satin at her back, finding the thin spaces of exposed flesh and feeling her breath hitch softly. "All of the victims in this case have been charity donors for this organization, murdered for their extremely expensive jewelry, and we've recently learned that our suspects attend events like these to scope out their options."

Beckett hums a noise of understanding, the vibration of her voice eliciting goose bumps along the back of his neck.

"Eyes inside," she surmises, her lashes brushing his cheek as she scans the room in time with him.

"Exactly."

"Can I help?"

"No," he answers immediately, listening to her huff in annoyance. "We met here by coincidence, remember? You know nothing about this."

"But I'm helping you now, aren't I?" she muses, leaning backwards against the palm splayed at the base of her spine meeting his eyes with too much mischief in hers. "I'm adding authenticity to your ruse."

"And the NYPD appreciates your cooperation," he replies, grinning at the gasp she releases when he dips her without warning.

He hauls her back up, breathes steadily through the firm press of her body against his, all the ways they align so perfectly. The band has come to a brief intermission, the music fading to a single classical piano, and Beckett guides him towards the sidelines of the room once more with their hands clasped, mimicking the other couples receding from the dance floor.

"Well, since you're refusing my help and making zero progress, how about a drink?"

She's already drifting towards the bar before he can respond, winking to him over her bare shoulder.

As if this operation wasn't already hard enough.

"Yo, how's it going in there, bro?" Esposito rattles in his ear. "Ryan's saying he's getting zilch on his end."

Castle sighs and presses down discretely on the earpiece.

"Same here. If nothing pops in the next hour, we'll call it a night," he decides under his breath, keeping his eyes on Kate at the bar while she awaits her order and smiles at the bartender.

He should _not_ feel a dark slither of jealousy in his stomach at that.

"You got it, Boss."

Rick crosses his arms and leans back against the glittering wall behind him while he waits for his 'date' to return, attempts to take a deep breath and calm the riot overtaking his insides, but his second of solitude is quickly disrupted.

"Hey man, congratulations." Castle cuts his eyes to the younger man who has appeared at his side. The blonde guy claps him on the shoulder, using Castle for momentary balance as he attempts to focus with hazy green eyes that hint at one too many cocktails. "That Kate Beckett is a hard chick to charm."

The man at his side exudes arrogance, a cocky kind of confidence that already has Castle bristling, but Rick merely shrugs his shoulder, dislodges the man's hand, and attempts to relax against the wall once more.

"Believe me, I've tried, but she's always turning me down. No idea why."

"No idea," Rick mumbles, but the bachelor at his side doesn't seem to catch his sarcasm.

"Right? Rich bitch thinks she's too good for everyone else."

Castle curls his fists at his sides, breathes through the urge to indulge his temper. It isn't worth it, not for some asshole who knows nothing about her. Not that Rick knows much more, not after knowing her for a combined matter of hours, but he definitely doesn't agree with the smug bachelor's assessment.

"Maybe you should try getting to know her before you judge her," Castle throws out, returning his gaze to Kate as she accepts two champagne flutes from the bartender with a charming smile that lights up her side of the ballroom.

"She's not really someone you get to know, if you know what I'm saying," he chuckles, bumping Rick's shoulder with his own. "Just a really good piece of ass."

"Don't talk about her like that," Rick states evenly, through gritted teeth, but the man at his side hardly notices that Castle has spoken, continues rattling on as his eyes follow Kate with lazy intrigue.

"Perfect to use for a night, fuck to your heart's content, and then-"

Gasps of horror fill the ballroom seconds after he lands the punch and sends the bachelor to the cool marble of the floor. He's tempted to hit him again, right in the mouth until his lip swells so badly he can't say another word about Kate Beckett or any other woman, but before he can make his choice, two pairs of hands are closing around his biceps, jerking him back.

He expects security, not Kate and Ryan working as a team to tug and herd him towards the nearest exit.

"What the hell are you thinking, Castle?" Ryan hisses, shoving him through the back doorway. "That's not our guy and we're supposed to be lying low, remember?"

The brisk night air helps clear his head, calming the anger still thrumming through his veins, but he can't bring himself to regret socking that guy in the jaw. No, he still wants to hit him again.

"Detective Ryan," Kate's voice comes from behind him, too close, and that's when he feels her hand on the small of his back, slipping beneath his suit jacket to brush her knuckles at his spine. Soothing him, causing his blood to reduce from its heady boiling to a fading simmer. "You should both probably get out of here before too many people see your faces."

"You're right," Ryan nods, glancing back to the closed backdoor and scrubbing at his jaw. "We should-"

"Wait, she isn't safe," Castle interjects before Ryan can lead him towards the Crown Vic they're sharing for the night. "If our band of thieves were here tonight, I have no doubt they spotted her neck."

Ryan's eyes dart to the band of jewels around Kate's throat, the sharp blue irises flashing with understanding.

"Should we bring her back to the Twelfth with us?" Ryan questions, even as Kate's hands fly to her hips, some type of protest already bubbling on her tongue while the heat of her knuckles at his back continues to burn through his dress shirt even in their absence.

"No, not yet. I'll - protective custody," Castle decides with a snap of his fingers before he can think better of what he's saying. "I'll fill Montgomery in, but for now, I'm going to stay with Miss Beckett."

" _Excuse me_?" she snaps, but Rick ignores her until Ryan nods quickly before taking off, already jogging towards the cruiser parked across the street.

"Thanks for the help, Beckett," he calls over his shoulder and despite the irritation flaring in her eyes, Kate sighs and waves before grabbing Castle by the wrist and dragging him towards a limousine parked nearby.

Seeing as his boys, and his ride, are driving away without him, he doesn't fight Kate's hand guiding – shoving – him inside the expensive vehicle, pushing him in first before climbing in behind him and shutting the door.

"Ms. Beckett," a voice from the front seat greets. "I hadn't expected you for another hour."

"My plans changed, Ernie. Could you please just take me home?"

"Yes, ma'am, would you like me to roll up the partition?"

"If you don't mind."

The shield between driver and passengers rises and the lights dim as the engine comes to life. And then she hits him.

" _Ow_! What-"

"How dare you," she growls, smacking his shoulder with enough force to have him wincing. "You can't just invite yourself over for a nightcap."

"We don't have to go back to your place, I just need to keep you in my sights for the next few hours to make sure you're safe. I am _trying_ to protect you, Kate," he hisses.

"Oh, really? Like you were in there when you knocked Harrison Banks to the ground?"

Castle exhales through his nose and turns away from her, glaring out into the sea of moving city lights.

"Rick," she murmurs, sighs, and he drops his head back against the leather seat, squeezing his eyes closed so tightly white spots decorate the darkness. He doesn't regret hitting that man, but he does regret his stupidity, the unprofessionalism of his actions while on a work assignment for God's sake.

He regrets what it could mean.

Cool fingers dust over his throbbing knuckles.

"Why'd you hit him?" she questions and he relents, finally opens his eyes to her inquisitive stare in the darkness.

"Because he's an asshole?"

She ignores his attempt at a joke and forges on. "Did he say something about me?"

"I don't want to talk about it-"

"Well, I do," she snaps, surprising him with the touch of her fingers at his chin forcing him to look at her, to meet the gems of her eyes in the dimness of the car. "I do not need you going around punching people in the face over me like some caveman, got it?"

He huffs, stubborn, but she doesn't release him.

"Harrison talks about me all the time, a lot of people do, it's not even a big deal, Castle," she assures him, quieter, and his anger flares up again.

"They shouldn't. Not like that. All they're doing is spreading lies."

She shrugs, her fingers finally falling from his face to her lap. "It's not ideal, but you get used to it. As long as I know the truth and the people I care about know the truth, who cares what the world thinks?"

He doesn't have an answer to that, but Kate doesn't seem to mind his silence, settling back in her seat and directing her stare towards the window. He calls Montgomery before they make it to her residence, explains the situation to his superior and only receives the short version of a lecture from the captain for the failed operation. He doesn't doubt Roy will learn of his ballroom brawl before this case is closed, but he's thankful Ryan and Esposito covered for him tonight.

"I was expecting a loft in SoHo," Castle murmurs when the limo stops in front of a sophisticated apartment building in Tribeca. It's nice, but not a place he would expect to find a woman of her status.

"I didn't like any of the apartments in SoHo as much as I liked this one," she shrugs, following him as he opens his door and steps onto the sidewalk.

Kate leads the way through the lobby, with a doorman who nods, but doesn't look up from his magazine, and into the elevator. They ride in comfortable silence for three floors, the doors sliding open to a clean but boring hallway, and this is so far from what he was expecting. The exterior of her home has her looking far less like a celebrity and much more normal than he was prepared for.

"Wow," he comments after she unlocks her front door and ushers him inside her apartment. It's nothing extravagant, no, but it's different, unique and warm, exuding everything she's come to represent in his short time knowing her.

"Good enough for your standards, Detective?" Beckett questions with a grin playing along the corners of her lips while she heads for the small but modern looking kitchen.

He shrugs to downplay his initial reaction. "It'll do."

"We never got to have that drink," she muses, already retrieving a half empty bottle of wine from the stainless steel fridge. "Want a glass, or would that be too much like a date for you?"

Castle sighs, giving in at last and joining her in the kitchen.

"I'll take a glass."

"So, are you going to tell me anything more about this case yet?" she asks with a raised brow while she pours the rich, crimson liquid into two matching wineglasses.

"Yet?" he echoes, accepting the alcohol she hands him and following her to her sofa when she sashays past him.

He takes a good look at her living room as he sits down a respectable distance from her on the couch, almost an entire cushion between them. Like he noted upon his first glance, the place isn't overdone, nothing fancy out of a home design magazine as he would have imagined, but covered head to toe in industrialized minimalism with touches of bohemian flare. Nothing matches, from the dining room, to the kitchen, to the room he sits in now; her eclectic tastes are scattered across the entire apartment, turning the place into more than just a living space, but a real home.

A large bookshelf takes up nearly an entire wall on the right, pieces of art on the wall beside it that spill into another room that appears to be an office that holds her laptop, a desk with expensive, sinfully comfortable looking office chair, and a window that is covered in intriguing, multicolored sticky notes. It's the space of her living room, though, that he's already coming to like best, the massive painting adorning the opposite wall holding his attention long enough for her to notice.

"I got it in L.A," she hums around a sip from her glass, her gaze caressing the floor-to-ceiling piece. "I love the way the world is falling around her, crashing with chaos, but she's keeping it together, intending to risk her life to save the child on the bridge."

Castle swallows hard and turns his eyes away from the painting, directing them back to the smooth liquid in his glass.

"But anyway, this case, fill me in," she says, leaning forward to set her wineglass on the quant coffee table in front of the couch before pulling her knees up and orientating her body towards him, as if preparing for a good story, and is she serious?

"No, Beckett," he huffs, taking a long gulp of wine and trying not to wince at the intense burst of bittersweet flavor slithering down his throat. "I'm not giving a civilian the run down of a-"

"C'mon," she whines, an adorable but mostly annoying sound. "I already know most of it."

"Too much," he nods, mimicking her action from earlier and placing his glass down beside hers. "And aside from the fact that you are now in danger because of it cements that you know more than enough."

Beckett rolls her eyes and props her chin in her hand while her elbow takes residence on the back of the couch, her gaze slipping to the opened windows, down to scan the cityscape below.

"So what are you supposed to do for the next few hours? Babysit me?"

Castle shrugs and relaxes back into the comfortable leather sectional. "Until Captain Montgomery notifies me that the two black and whites that he's ordered to come stakeout your building get here."

"More babysitters," she grumbles, pouting, and he tries not to laugh at her. "If I was writing this story-"

"This is not one of your novels," he interjects, harsher than he had intended. "People are dead, Ms. Beckett."

"And I wasn't making light of that, Detective," she throws back without missing a beat, not a hint of playfulness to her voice, only a narrowed gaze in his direction that keeps his lips pinned together. There is more than respect for the dead in her eyes, something like knowledge overtaking the clouding pools of her irises, but she draws the curtain of her lashes down to hide them before he can truly understand why. "Now, I think that is my cue to retire to my bedroom, but feel free to help yourself to what's in the fridge if you get hungry."

Rick watches, surprised beneath the blank expression his face holds, as Kate rises from the sofa and disappears down the only hallway without another word, the sway of her hips still adorned in the clinging material of her gown maddening. Even after he hears the audible click of what he assumes is a bedroom door, Castle remains on the couch, rooted to the spot. It's been awhile, _more_ than awhile, since a woman has held his interest like this. Been awhile since any woman has had him craving to study, to learn, to have.

Castle pinches the bridge of his nose, presses his first two fingers between his brows to quell the headache forming there, and turns his attention to the opposite direction of where Kate Beckett had disappeared to, his gaze landing on her bookshelf instead. He contemplates scanning the endless rows of book titles, maybe settling down with a decent read while he waits for the uniforms assigned to her building to arrive, but now, with her gone, his attention continues to drift, trailing towards the open office doorway and those post-it notes decorating the windows.


	4. Chapter 4

With one more glance towards the hallway, Castle rises from the sofa, trying to avoid the creaky floorboards that he noticed earlier and entering the office with quiet stealth. He moves in close to the notes adorning the wings of the shutters, the glass of the windows, squinting to read the loops and curves of her handwriting. All he's able to make out are a few character descriptions, some references to older novels' plotlines, but off to one side, secluded on a single window shutter, is the name of a woman – Johanna Beckett – and the information placed below her name doesn't appear to be fictional.

But before he can read any further, a hand is flying past him, slamming the shutters closed.

Castle jumps, hand going straight for the holster hidden beneath his suit jacket.

"Searching for spoilers, Castle?"

Rick draws his fingers away from the weapon at his waist, turns to find Kate watching him with a curved brow and a hint of anger sparkling in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, stepping away from her homemade storyboard. "I was just-"

"Snooping?" she cuts in, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, over the dress still hanging from her frame. "Don't you need a search warrant for that?"

"Beckett, I'm-"

"Listen, why don't you just go and I'll wait for your backup myself. I doubt the killer will come for me within the next twenty minutes and if he does, I'll be sure to call you." Her words are clipped, professional and impersonal, and he knows she's more upset by this invasion of privacy than she's letting on, but why does he even care? She wants him gone, he should be glad. "The door will lock automatically on your way out," she calls back over her shoulder, already striding back down that hallway, and Castle hesitates, glancing between the corridor and the exit.

He should leave. She's right, the officers should be here in a matter of minutes by now and she'll be fine waiting for them on her own, or at least with him outside her door in the hall. There's no need for him to stick around any longer.

And yet, as if unable to help himself, Castle follows the path she took down the hallway.

The short, softly lit hall leads to a single door that she failed to close and he finds her as soon as he steps inside the entryway, standing in the middle of a bedroom that is elegantly styled and definitely hers with her hair draped over one shoulder, her hands fiddling with the laces at her back.

"Thought I told you to go," she sighs, not sparing him a glance while her fingers continue to tangle with the silk red ties.

Castle steps forward, replacing the work of her fingers with his own, untying the lace strapping of the bodice until it's unraveling and she's lifting a hand to the front of the dress to keep it from slipping downwards.

Words are not his forte to begin with, but when it comes to Kate Beckett, his tongue becomes more tangled than usual and he's left choking in front of her. The naked expanse of her back, the tantalizing skin that's been calling to him all evening on display and causing his hands to itch with yearning isn't helping.

"Castle, will you just-"

"I'm sorry," he blurts, balling his fists as she turns on the spot, her fingers still clutching tightly to the front of the gown, but it's not enough and he's tempted to grab the robe draped over the armchair in the corner just to cover her up. "I hadn't meant to go through your things, make you uncomfortable."

Kate's eyes flicker up to meet him, a subtle flare of lust burning gold in the kaleidoscope of her irises, but she steps away from him.

"You look far more uncomfortable than me, Detective Castle," she murmurs, a smirk teasing at her lips, but before he can respond, his phone rattles in his pocket.

"Castle," he answers, keeping his gaze on her as she drifts towards a bureau near the doorway, withdrawing a pair of leggings and a large t-shirt.

"Hey Boss, two uniforms should be outside Beckett's apartment now," Ryan informs him. "You're free to go home for the night."

"Thanks Ryan," Castle replies, averting his eyes when he notices Kate opening another drawer that holds quite a bit of lace.

"You know, it's not _that_ late. You could probably still call your date and-"

"Goodnight, Ryan." Rick ends the call and slips his phone back into his slacks. "You've got two officers posted outside your building. I should go."

Beckett hums, the lovely line of her throat bobbing as she nods, pulling the bundle of clothing in her arm against her chest. "Probably should."

He knows it's his cue to leave, to allow her to undress alone, but his body is already listing towards her, his feet planted to the thin carpet adorning her bedroom doorway while the rest of his being sways forward.

She's watching him now, dark, curious eyes studying him from beneath the fringe of her lashes, waiting and sparking with challenge, and for the millionth time, he should _really_ go.

"Or…"

Her lips quirk, her fingers flexing, and he's beginning to feel guilty for making her stand with that dress pressed to her chest for his sake.

"Or?" she parrots, coming towards him on bare feet, stopping once she's just a breath away.

"I could-" Her eyes flick to his lips and she sucks her own bottom lip into her mouth, the white row of her teeth appearing to pierce the vulnerable flesh. "Stay," he gets out, reaching up to loosen the bowtie around his neck. "Protect you."

Beckett's unoccupied hand rises to curl around one of his lapels, working with the roll of his shoulder to ease his suit jacket off, allowing the rented fabric to hit the ground.

"Protect me, huh?" she grins, those slender fingers migrating to the demolished bowtie and then onto the top button of his shirt, toying with it, with him.

He's been over this far too many times already, come to the conclusion that pursuing anything with this woman would be a mistake for both of them, but it would just be one night. He could handle one night, couldn't he?

Castle finally reaches for her, allowing his hands their first touch of her as they land on the juts of her hipbones, traveling up her sides, feeling her breath quicken beneath his palms as he's finally allowed the sensation of her naked flesh beneath his fingertips.

Kate lifts on the tips of her toes, her body surging like a wave to meet his, gentle but strong, her hand releasing the dress in favor of him. The gown falls from her fingers, slithering down her sides until it reaches the jagged points of her hips that stall its descent, but Castle is too transfixed by the sight of her eyes, sharp and steady as they stare up at him, by the heat of her flesh beneath his hands, by the closeness of her mouth. Kate is the one to snap him out of it, shimmying her hips until the fabric makes its final glide down her body to pool at the floor around her feet.

But all he wants is her mouth.

Kate's fingers abandon the work of his buttons to cradle his jaw when he kisses her, her touch so soft, so welcoming, he already needs more. She gasps, threads her fingers through his hair when he skims his hands up the skin of her sides, caressing the underside of a breast and oh – _oh_ , he had expected the layer of a strapless bra. Castle takes advantage of her breath of surprise to slip his tongue past the weakened barrier of her lips, stroking hard along the roof of her mouth, tasting the lingering bursts of wine before plunging deeper into the heated cove of her mouth.

"Castle," she moans, back to tugging at his dress shirt, clawing at the last three buttons holding the fabric together before her fingers are dropping down to clutch at his waistband.

He stops, panting harshly, and Kate opens her eyes, glancing up to snag his gaze before taking a small step back, out of the dress to stand in front of him in nothing but a single piece of red lace.

"You're beautiful," he gets out, chokes on, and while confidence exudes from her body, the smile that graces her lips is shy. Just like he remembers from the bookstore.

"Not so bad yourself," she murmurs, voice wet, drenched in arousal, pulling him towards her and finally managing to push his shirt from his shoulders. The bed is only a handful of steps away, but he slides his hands along her bare thighs anyway, picks her up, carries her to the middle of the queen-sized mattress, and forgets about everything. Everything but the haven of her body and the warmth of her mouth.

* * *

She gasps when Castle lifts her, the heated meeting of skins causing them both to pause, but only for a moment. Her legs around his waist provide the contact she craves, the naked wall of his chest against hers slowly feeding the fire boiling beneath the surface, and she undulates her lower body, hard and tight as she bows forward to kiss him again.

Castle groans, low and enticing, and places a knee to the edge of her bed, descends to the mattress without leaving her mouth. Kate arches beneath him once he's above her, rocking into the cradle of his hips, and growls in frustration at the hindrance of clothing still between them.

His teeth stab into her bottom lip, fierce and electrifying, before he pulls away, his mouth descending to her jaw, her neck, worshipping at her throat as his hands work between them, disposing of his trousers while she tattoos the skin of his back with her nails. When the barriers are gone, materials between them eradicated, and he sinks down, the naked press of his body like nirvana, she embraces him, twines her limbs around him and seeks the sanctuary of his lips.

The way he kisses her, like he wants to climb inside of her, like he wants to lose himself at the altar of her mouth, makes her want him more. More than she was prepared for.

"Don't stop," she murmurs, digging her fingers into the rigid muscles of his back, spanning her hands over the wings of his shoulder blades. "God, don't-"

"I'm not," he promises, growls around the bruising press of his mouth, and her body arcs with a combination of relief and pleasure as he proves it.

It wasn't supposed to go like this; it never goes like this, not for her. She's never found satisfaction in taking things slow, in anything less than frantic, hot, and thoughtless. Sex hasn't been about anything more than forgetting for years now, but this – this she wants to remember.

* * *

Kate keeps him awake throughout the night, not that sleep is even a fraction as appealing as the woman he's sharing a bed with in the glow of the moonlight, but he does have to work in the morning, and by three a.m., Beckett finally settles at his side.

"Castle," she hums, the soft skin of her cheek flattened against his shoulder and he curls his arm upwards, strokes the tousled hair back from her face. "Fun working with you."

He huffs a laugh, lowers his hand back to the thigh draping over his hip, trailing up to the taut skin just below the bone of hers, tracing over the tattoo there, memorizing as much of her as he can.

He wants to stay, wants to drift to sleep with her in her bed and wake at six, kiss her goodbye, and go to work like any normal man would. He wants to come back to her, crawl into her bed every night, seduce her body with his until they're both limp and sated, and repeat the process into the unforeseeable future. But it's never that easy, it can't be, and that's why tonight was a one time thing.

Though, he thinks he maybe should have told Kate that first. He can't read her mind, but she's acutely aware of the connection between them, finely tuned to him in so little time, and if the last three rounds in her bed have been any indication, she definitely likes him. Maybe it could be this easy, maybe he could just let this thing unravel between them, follow the path it takes, but he knows how it will end. How it always ends anytime he lets someone in.

The moment he tells her about Alexis, the moment she realizes how truly torn apart he still is… he'll drown them both in it.

"Rick," she whispers, pushing up onto her elbow, a mess of curls tumbling over her shoulder to form a curtain around them. "Stop thinking so much."

Her eyes are lustrous in the moonlight, languid and hazed as they gaze down at him with a foreign fondness he'll never understand, and Rick curls a hand at the back of her neck, drags her down until her bare breasts are flush against his chest, her parted lips poised above his mouth.

"One more?" she breathes, nudging the tip of his nose with her own, taking his upper lip into her mouth, laving it with her tongue until he doesn't have a choice in the matter. "Only if you think you can handle it."

He scoffs at the tease she hums into his mouth and hooks his knee over her thigh, rolls her over so quickly she's wide eyed once he's hovering atop her, delighted arousal in the ink black pools of her pupils. His body can handle another round with her, he's not so sure about his heart, but he's become rather skilled at disregarding the opinion of that particular muscle.

"I can handle it."


	5. Chapter 5

The squawk of a siren wakes her the next morning, not an unusual sound, but close enough to have her jerking in the bed and peeling her eyes back to the early morning light streaming through her bedroom window. Kate stretches into consciousness, arching her spine and flexing her toes, feeling a pleasant ache flare between her legs, a soreness lacing through her limbs that she hasn't felt in too long, but no heat at her back, no sensation of another body in her bed, and she opens her eyes with a sinking feeling already taking residence in her stomach. Of course, she had known it was a possibility that he would be gone the next morning, but after a night in her bed and the way he had looked at her, _touched_ her… she just didn't take Rick Castle for the type to flee without a word.

Kate sits up in the disheveled sheets, scans the room for any sign of him, for a chance that she could be wrong, but there are no clothes on the ground, no note on the nightstand, no indication that he'd ever been here at all.

"Jackass," she sighs, scraping a hand through her hair, wincing as her fingers catch in tangles that he's responsible for.

But the wafting scent of coffee filtering through her bedroom has her pausing, foolish hope seizing her chest, and Kate slips from the bed, tiptoeing towards her partially open bedroom door. She eases silently into the hallway, listening for sounds of movement, signs of life. The picture of him standing in her kitchen, already dressed for work but sparing the time to make a cup of coffee before he departs fills her mind, the imagery vivid and welcome, but once she steps into the living room, she sees that save for her, her apartment is most definitely empty.

And then, like an idiot, she remembers that her coffeemaker is set to an automatic timer for six a.m. each morning.

Kate wraps her arms around her bare body, turns on her heel and heads back to her room with her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. Under normal circumstances, she would be relieved a man had left without a goodbye. It made things so much easier, so much less complicated, but this one… she had wanted more time. More time to deconstruct the brick and mortar built in the place of his ribs, more time to learn the reason behind the recognizable grief always hiding in the depths of his eyes, more time to understand the immediate urge to put his personality to paper.

She'd wanted more time to learn his story, but more importantly, to learn him.

Kate huffs under her breath and scrapes her hair back with the hair tie around her wrist. She had intended to take a shower, but grabs her favorite moleskin from her nightstand instead, plops down on the edge of her mattress, and begins to write down everything she can remember while it's still fresh in her mind, on her skin. From his appearance to his quirks, from the way he pinches the bridge of his nose when he's frustrated to the speed of his reflexes when she startled him in her office last night, from the jagged scar on his left bicep to the indigo spread of lust that consumed the brilliant blue of his irises the first time she touched him - she jots it all down.

It's been awhile – years – since a person has her inspired like this, had her enthralled and fascinated, so much so that she can't help capturing them in the essence of a story. Richard Castle already makes a perfect muse, but one single night with him isn't enough to base an entire book on. No, no longer does she want more, she _needs_ it.

Collette Stryker the CIA agent is dead, done with, and Jonathan is already breathing down her neck for new ideas, for a new book and a new character that will capture the hearts of millions like her last series has, and she may finally have something to satisfy her stir-crazy publisher with. She just has to weasel her way back into Richard Castle's life first.

* * *

The call had come in at five that morning and he had slipped soundlessly from Kate Beckett's bed, tugging the sheets up to cover her naked back and dusting a kiss to her temple before shrugging on his clothes from the night before and rushing to meet Ryan and Esposito outside her building with a grizzly, middle-aged man in their grasp.

Sure enough, his assumption had been right and upon seeing Kate at the gala, their jewel thief had chosen her as their next victim, tracked her down and camped outside her apartment until daybreak, where he had planned to slit her throat before dawn. The uniforms on scene had made the call the second they noticed an out of place man lurking through the alleys near her apartment building, scoping the place out, and Ryan and Espo had arrived just in time, snagging the man who matched their police sketch before he could even attempt to enter.

The boys had given him a once over upon realizing he was already on the scene they had chased their suspect to, but he had simply claimed he'd fallen asleep on her couch and that Kate Beckett hadn't had the heart to wake him. Ryan throws him a funny look at the lie, but keeps quiet. For now.

He tells his team to go ahead to the Twelfth, that he would meet them there after a quick stop at his apartment for a change of clothes, but as he lifts his hand for a cab in the early morning light, he can't help hesitating once the yellow cab comes to a stop before him. Kate was not a simple one night stand, he didn't want that idea to even cross her mind, but to run back upstairs, knock on her door just to give her a proper goodbye… it was too much. It was easier this way for both of them.

So he slid in the cab when the driver honked, ignored the temptation to be a better man, and took the coward's way out.

At the precinct, Castle leads the interrogation with Esposito for Karl Nadir, eventually receiving a grumbled confession for the string of home invasions. Ryan is sent to pick up his accomplice, who took the photos at each event, and just like that, the case is closed, and Castle is left to fill out paperwork for the next few hours. But when he emerges from interrogation room 2, a steaming cup of coffee is sitting next to his computer and his chair is turned away from his desk. He grits his teeth in irritation - he hates when people mess with his chair - and spins it around with a little too much force, nearly jerks in surprise at the sight of Katherine Beckett gripping the armrests.

Surprise turns to horror, excuses and apologies crowding for attention on his tongue, but she doesn't look angry, doesn't appear wounded like any other woman he's known would after the choices he made this morning, merely disgruntled by the quick spin he forced her to take.

"Well, that's one way to greet a person," she huffs, uncrossing her legs and standing from his seat. His eyes yearn to caress her body, to admire and appreciate the red cling of her sweater and the tight quality of her dark denim jeans. He knows exactly what lies beneath, executed a thorough examination only a few short hours ago, but they're at the precinct now, his workplace, where he really should not be recalling the vivid picture of her naked.

"Kate?"

The use of her first name seems to elicit a simmer of delight along the edges of her irises, but the smile illuminating her face is strained, fake, and there's something wary in her eyes, a kind of hesitancy that makes his insides constrict with apprehension.

What has he done to her? And what has she done in retaliation?

"Why are you here? How did you even know where to find me?"

"Morning to you too, Rick," she hums, her tongue clicking over the 'k', just like it had last night. Kate props her hip on the edge of his desk and nods to the coffee near his computer. "Brought you coffee."

Castle takes a deep breath, accepts the to go cup he recognizes from a place on the upper east side, an expensive place, and inhales a sip of the rich brew. It's black, no cream or sugar, just bitter and right, and he wonders how she-

"Marie," she shrugs by way of explanation before he can even ask, but the fact that she read him so quickly, interpreted his question before it could leave his lips, unsettles him. She shouldn't be able to do that, shouldn't be so familiar with the track of his mind so soon. She shouldn't _be here._

Which brings him back to the question he _did_ ask her. "Thanks, but what are you doing here, Kate?"

"Your captain's wife is a fan of my novels, I called her this morning on a hunch and ended up talking to Roy," she informs him, a build up to something he just _knows_ he isn't going to like. "And Roy talked to the Commissioner, who had already spoken with the mayor, and-"

"Ah, Detective Castle," Montgomery announces before she can continue, much to her relief apparently as she exhales a quiet sigh, strolling out of his office to stand beside the two of them. "This is Katherine Beckett, your shadow for the foreseeable future."

His stomach drops and his eyes cut to her, irritation bubbling in his gut at the coy smirk that claims her lips.

No, he doesn't like this at all.

"My _what_?"

"I'm sure you've heard of her," Roy grins, clapping a gentle hand on Beckett's shoulder. "Famous mystery novelist with 26 bestsellers to date, perhaps 27 soon if this all works out."

Castle narrows his eyes on his captain, glancing between his superior and Kate Beckett with intensifying dread consuming his stomach, but Kate only shrugs her shoulders, grinning bashfully under the captain's praise.

"What do you mean if this all works out?" Castle repeats, crossing his arms, and noticing Montgomery stand a little taller at the action in a move Rick recognizes from past challenges to his captain's role of superiority.

"Ms. Beckett explained everything that occurred at the M.A.D.T gala last night, informed me of how heroic it was of you to defend her when Harrison Banks began his verbal harassment, even when doing so meant potentially blowing your cover." Kate meets his eyes from beneath the fringe of her lashes, the silent _you owe me_ flaring in the shadows of her gaze, and Rick clenches his fists. "That act seems to have inspired some ideas, right, Beckett?"

"Indeed, Captain," Kate confirms, sharing a smile with him that looks rehearsed, well-practiced, and – shit, Kate knows Roy and his family outside of work, doesn't she? She has to if the prideful, fatherly gleam in Roy's eyes is any indication, along with Kate being able to contact his wife with such ease. God, it just keeps getting worse. "With the Stryker series all wrapped up, I'm ready to tackle a new character, and Detective Castle happens to be exactly what I'm looking for."

Rick grits his teeth, averts his gaze away from her before he snaps, and turns it on Captain Montgomery instead.

"How long, Sir?"

Roy shrugs, releasing Kate's shoulder and drifting back towards his office.

"That's up to her."

Montgomery disappears into his office, leaving the two of them alone in the buzz of the bullpen, but no longer will Beckett meet his eyes, her gaze already averted towards the elevators in the nearby distance.

"Well, I'll be back tomorrow to do the paperwork and everything," Kate murmurs, already prepared to follow Montgomery's lead and make her escape, but Rick catches her by the wrist, discretely attempts to draw her in.

"Kate, you cannot do this-"

But she rips her arm from his grasp, a startling intensity filling up the hard lines of her face.

"This isn't a punishment," she states, clasping her hands in front of her. "Just so you know. I would have ended up here regardless of what happened last night."

He's dumbstruck, struck speechless by this woman, and she's turning on the heel of her boots before he can even try to get a word out, disappearing towards the elevator with nothing more than a heated look over her shoulder. A reminder of the night before, a look that has a dizzying contrast of arousal and regret climbing the rungs of his ribs. Not regret over what they did – no, he _can't_ regret that, he just can't – but of how he left her. It's been three hours, but he already knows he'll regret that for a long time.

Castle falls into his chair and sips her overly expensive coffee, attempts to ignore the inner turmoil consuming his entire body. She doesn't realize it yet, but she has no idea what she's getting into, and neither does he, but he knows it's bad.

This is such a bad idea.


	6. Chapter 6

Richard Castle is about to take their suspect to the ground. The adrenaline is pumping through his veins, propelling him down the sidewalk, only inches away from reaching him. But just as they both round the corner, his suspect goes staggering to the dirty concrete before Rick can lay a hand on him, smacking to his knees and barking out a curse as he slips and stumbles into a nearby sheet of ice.

The first thing he sees are the heels, four inches high and belonging to a pair of endless legs he knows all too well.

"Beckett," he growls, stalking forward and stepping over the groaning man on the sidewalk, bending down to maneuver the suspect's hands behind his back, locking them there with the handcuffs from his belt. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Kate Beckett crosses her arms, staring down at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I was being helpful," she quips, her smug gaze flickering between him and Anthony Sanders.

"How did you even-"

She lifts the moleskin notebook from her side, waves it proudly. "Words really are mightier than the sword."

His nuisance of a ride along just knocked their suspect out with a notebook. Montgomery will get a kick out of this, but not him. He's sick of babysitting.

"When are you going to learn to stay out of the way? I told you to stay in the car," he snaps, standing straight and giving her the best reprimanding glare he can manage, but all he receives is a flippant shrug in return.

"Really, Detective, you should be thanking me," she grins, sauntering towards him, patting his shoulder as she passes. "I'm a real asset to this team.

Rick rolls his eyes and hauls Sanders from the ground, walks the grumbling murderer to Ryan and Esposito's cruiser. Beckett's already there, proudly filling the boys in on her first takedown.

"Damn girl," Espo whistles. "You sure you want to be shadowing Castle, I'd be way more appreciative of your help."

Castle shoves the suspect towards Esposito, who catches the man but grunts at him in annoyance while Ryan smirks and opens the backdoor.

"Don't make me call Lanie," Beckett throws back, moving around Rick to open the passenger door of his Crown Victoria. "C'mon Castle, it's freezing out here."

He huffs, still can't believe that after two weeks she's still here, then walks around to slide into the driver's side.

"I'm serious, Beckett," he mutters, turning the key in the ignition and blasting the heat. "Stop putting yourself in danger."

"Am I sensing some concern for my well being all of a sudden?" she muses, but it lacks the playful lilt usually injected into her tone and she directs her gaze towards the window.

"Stop," he sighs, but she doesn't answer, bitterness spreading through the inside of the car like noxious gas.

It's not an uncommon occurrence when they're alone, for her to harden, exude a chill that stings far worse than the cold of winter outside. The last two weeks have been… interesting. Kate's been showing up every other day, arriving in the early morning with two coffees in hand and her trusty moleskin notebook tucked under her arm. He had expected misery when they started this ride along, for the experience to be absolutely intolerable, but Katherine Beckett is smart, committed, and she had proved within her first few days of following him around that she could do more than shadow.

She spent hours with him at the murder board, building theory and making connections on the stained whiteboard, coaxing him into viewing each case from a different perspective whenever he got stuck. It makes him want her; _that_ has been the true intolerable part of this experience.

Of course, they don't talk about it. He catches her watching him sometimes, a ghost of a memory skittering across her face, but they don't discuss anything that isn't case related anymore. And he doesn't know how to fix it, doesn't even know where to begin, but he can admit – if only to himself – that he misses the way they used to be, however brief, before he left her that morning without a goodbye. He misses the banter that once came with ease, the unguarded smiles she used to let him see, the way she had kept close rather than held herself apart.

"Where are we going?" she murmurs after a few minutes when she notices he's heading in the opposite direction of the precinct.

Captain Montgomery said it was up to her how long she stuck around, and he doesn't see her leaving any time soon. She's going to be around for a while. He doesn't know how long, but he knows he can't stand much more of this passive aggressive behavior they both put forward. They need to establish a common ground, an understanding of sorts, and though hasty, he thinks he has an idea of how to accomplish that.

"Castle-"

"You'll see in a few minutes, Beckett. Calm down."

Her arms cross and she tilts back in her seat, directing her gaze towards the window, glaring at the grey winter sky. And he thought _he_ was the control freak.

The drive to the park takes ten minutes, but he doesn't intend to keep her here long, and if the boys ask, he'll blame traffic. The moment he puts the car in park at the edge of the snow sprinkled grass, he expects a myriad of questions, but Kate unbuckles her seatbelt, pushes her door open, and strides into the park with a determination he can't comprehend. But he doesn't question her either, simply follows her lead, staying a step behind until they reach a set of unoccupied swings and she takes a seat on one.

Rick lowers himself to the one beside her, swallows hard against the chill of the swing beneath him and searches for the words he had been hoping would come easy for once. She's waiting on him, swaying slowly, clinging to one of the frost touched chains, but when his mentally rehearsed explanation remains caught in his throat, she sighs.

"Did you read it?"

"What?" he gets out, and at least it's something, finally.

"The book. The one I signed for you in the store that first day," she murmurs, scraping at the knee of her jeans with her thumbnail, scratching so hard he expects her to claw a hole in the denim.

"No," he admits. "After everything that happened… I haven't taken the time."

Kate nods, no visible disappointment on her face, but a shuttering darkness already in place in her eyes.

"Did you really kill her?" he blurts, almost horrified when the words slip out of his mouth, the wrong words, and she turns to him at last, vivid sorrow rippling through her gaze while confusion creases her brow.

"That's what you - _why_? Why do you care about a stupid fictional-"

"She's not stupid," he defends, too quickly with too much feeling, and of course, she notices. And how exactly is he supposed to explain what the character she created meant to him, how Collette Stryker's integrity, her heart and her need for justice made him think of his daughter at times, how she could have been. "She was important."

"I'm sorry," Kate whispers, reaching out to clasp the chain of his swing, to draw him in closer with her bare fingers around the iced chain. Castle sighs and detaches her hand from the frozen metal, cradles her slender fingers in his palm. "I didn't know you cared about her that much."

"Your fault," he grumbles, stroking her knuckles with his thumb, feeling the icicles of her fingers beginning to melt.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," she hums, wiggling her fingers in his grasp, and he lets her go. "So, plan to tell me why we're freezing our asses off on a couple of swings?"

His lips quirk, but he doesn't smile, digs his heels into the slush of snow at his feet instead. "We haven't talked about what happened, about us."

"There is no us," she reminds him, summing it all up in a simple statement, and he nods, wishes it were that easy. But it's not, not when the tension still exists, not when every single evening he watches her walk away and feels the want rises up in his chest harsh and wild, thriving and yearning for her.

She doesn't necessarily need to know that part, though.

"Kate, I don't let people in," he tries, his voice already too low and uneven, but despite the direction of her gaze poised straight ahead, he knows he has her attention, that she's listening. "I lost someone, someone I loved, and after that, everything changed for me. _I_ changed and it's like I built up this wall inside, to protect myself from ever feeling that sort of pain again."

He notices the hitch in her chest, the way her hands clench in her lap, and the name flashes in his mind, _Johanna Beckett_. He wonders if she knows exactly what he's talking about.

"The point is," he continues. "I'm not a good person to be involved with, not outside of work."

He expects her to argue, can practically sense the protest pushing at her lips, but she makes a decision in that moment, swallows it down.

"But I can still write about you?" she asks, so quiet and unlike her, that he turns his head to see it, to view the soft understanding simmering in her eyes. "Still follow you around?"

Rick sighs, but he won't tell her no, won't demand she stay away, because even though he loathes to admit it, even though he shouldn't, he has enjoyed her presence these last few weeks, soaked up the warmth of her like a greedy sponge. For years, he has mourned, alone and in the dark, but when she's around, she illuminates the dominating blackness of his ever-present sorrow. Against all of his better judgment, she has him wondering if maybe one day, he could be deserving of more. If he could ever be deserving of her.

"That's your choice," he concedes with a nod, rising from the swing and offering her his hand, tugging her upwards when she accepts and trapping her chilled hands between both of his.

"What if I change your mind?" she inquires, not teasing nor playful, but genuinely curious as she stares up at him, just barely. Those heels of hers always have her reaching his eye level, challenging his height, and she's just close enough that if he wanted to, he could kiss her right then with a simple tilt of his head forward.

Castle squeezes her fingers, but releases her a second later. They've been here too long and need to get back to the precinct, back to the real world, but Kate catches the sleeve of his coat, flicks her gaze from his mouth to his eyes. Rick ignores the signature flare of arousal, holds his breath and leans forward to dust a regretful kiss to the chilled skin of her forehead instead before shaking off the fingers curled at his coat sleeve.

"You won't."


	7. Chapter 7

"Why can't they find bodies between nine and five?" Esposito grumbles as Castle pulls up to the scene and takes a sip of coffee from his travel mug. It's not the good stuff, not like Beckett usually brings him every day, but it'll do.

"Early bird gets the collar," Castle sighs in reply, but he shares the sentiment. Waking up to a five a.m. call from dispatch is never exactly pleasant.

He had spared Kate the call, figuring she would appreciate the extra couple of hours to sleep in, but a mere moment later, the writer is emerging from the crowd of workers, looking brilliant in the sunlight that caresses her hair and the soft skin of her face as she strides up to stand beside him. She replaces his temporary travel mug from home with the more familiar fit of a to go cup that he's become all too accustomed to in these last few weeks.

"She was here before I was," Esposito chuckles, glancing to Beckett with a look that has morphed into brotherly affection over the past few months. Which Castle is all too grateful for.

His fellow detective had assessed Beckett with a subtle leer throughout her first couple of weeks on the force with them and of course, he couldn't blame Esposito, but Castle didn't like that. Not at all. And he knew it was petulant, possessive and hypocritical, but he had fallen into the horrible habit of seeing her as _his_ while they were working together – his writer, his partner, his… Kate – and he would never be keen on sharing.

"Finally you're here," Beckett murmurs, vibrating with anticipation next to him, and this case must be quite a strange one if she's this excited.

Kate approached every crime scene with a form of respect for the dead that he's always possessed but never found in many others. But, like him, she can't help becoming enthralled in each murder, especially the 'freaky ones' - as Esposito calls them - that draw both of them in like moths to a flame.

It's during cases like those that he's able to witness the passion exude from her every pore, her urge to write a living thing that twitches in her fingertips and climbs up her spine. There have been multiple occasions where he's had to tug her along by the arm, guiding her through a crowded sidewalk or a dispersing crime scene while she scribbles in the lined pages of her moleskin, desperate to get every thought, every word, out and on paper.

"Just wait until you see this," she adds, abandoning his side to maneuver her way through the crowd of factory workers and join Ryan inside the building while Esposito and Castle follow along. "By the way, what was the temperature last night?"

"Mid 40's," Castle hears Lanie Parish call down to her from the crossbars. "She's frozen solid, but not from exposure."

Rick steps up alongside Beckett, takes in the sight of the woman tangled in the rebar of the construction site, a garment bag opened and torn beside her. Her body is stiff, frozen solid, as Lanie stated, and dripping.

"She's melting," Castle murmurs, moving in to gain a closer look, questioning Lanie about the bag while Espo informs him about the security information he's learned from the guys on site.

"Odd," Beckett comments from over his shoulder, her warm breath caressing the exposed back of his neck, always too close. "Taking the trouble to freeze a body and then dumping it. That's two different personality types. A killer who freezes a body is a keeper, wants a souvenir, but a guy who dumps a body-"

"Doesn't want to be reminded of the crime," he finishes for her, glancing back to meet the secret smile flickering in her eyes.

"Creepy," Esposito mutters to Ryan. "Only a couple of months and they're finishing each other's sentences."

"I think they practice it while we're not around," Ryan stage whispers back.

Castle rolls his eyes and steps back, directing an approaching CSU tech with a camera to capture a close up of the victim's face for missing persons.

"C'mon Beckett, let's go check out the security fence."

Kate disengages from the crime scene and trails along after Castle until there is enough room for them to walk side by side, footsteps in sync, and maybe Esposito does have a point, but the connection he's established with Beckett is far too valuable for him to ever be ashamed of.

"So, I got some reading done this weekend," he begins, keeping his eyes resolutely trained ahead on the uneven ground of the construction zone, but Kate doesn't show any sign of interest either, her cards closer to her chest than ever before.

"Oh?" she hums with an arch of her brow. "Anything I've heard of?"

"Just this bestselling crime novelist. Pretty sure I owe her about a hundred coffees by now," he muses, watching from the corner of his eye as the corner of her mouth twitches. "I had been putting off reading the final book in her latest series, but I finished it last night-"

"And?" Castle chuckles at her sudden impatience and shrugs his shoulders just to hear her scoff of irritation. " _Castle_."

"It was bittersweet," he finally confesses. "I didn't want her to die, but you did her justice."

"Yeah?" When he glances over at her, Kate is biting her lip, shy expectancy blooming in her hazel eyes, and the urge to hold her hand is ridiculous but strong, even amidst the chaos of the crime scene.

"Yeah," he confirms, settling for a brush of his knuckles to the back of her hand instead.

"Rick, I was thinking-" The loud buzz of her cellphone from her coat pocket interrupts her words, has a frown creasing her lips as she fishes the phone out and purses her lips at the screen.

"Jonathan?" Rick reads the name over her shoulder without thinking, earning a look of reprimand in response, but it does little to disperse the jealousy blossoming in the pit of his stomach.

"Calm down," she mumbles, nudging him with her elbow but coming to a stop before they can reach the security fence they trekked across the site to examine. "It's my publisher. I'm behind by a chapter this week and Jon thinks it's part of his job to nag until I have it sent off. Pretty sure he's jealous of all the time I've been spending with my new muse too."

"Beckett, I told you not to call me that," he grunts, squaring his shoulders at the highly unmanly term.

"A dude can't be a muse, bro. That's weird," Esposito had informed him the first time Beckett had stated the term aloud and he had agreed. Truthfully, he doesn't mind it so much, secretly found it kind of flattering that his favorite author had found inspiration in him, but he would prefer it if she kept such facts to a minimum while they were at work.

"And why would he be jealous?"

Kate peels her eyes from her phone, slides them up to him with a glimmer of mischief flickering in the swirling green pools. "We dated for a while a few years ago. Nothing serious."

"You're lying," he appraises, not happy about the observation. "What happened? Was the nagging publisher too suffocating? Or are you one of those people who love the institution, but hate the day-to-day, Beckett?"

Kate shifts to face him, the advantage of her heels allowing her to meet his eyes with the challenge shining in hers. "No, maybe I just haven't met the right guy."

The implication is impossible to miss, especially when her gaze flicks from his eyes to his lips and back again, but he does his best to ignore it. Even though the rest of his body fails, his blood heating beneath her gaze.

"He proposed after six months. I said no. We broke up and now the only relationship we have is business related," Beckett recites, the story clipped and curt, far from befitting of a bestselling author. There's still a story there and he can see it, pieces of the hurt pinching the corners of her eyes, her mouth.

"If it's that simple, why do you look like you regret it?"

"Whatever you think you see, it isn't regret," she argues, calmly, scanning their surroundings, glancing to the phone now silent and still encompassed in her gloved fingers. "Jonathan and I are friends now, but our breakup wasn't clean. He… he told me I was incapable of letting anyone in. That whatever wall I had built up would have me shut in forever. Alone." She shuffles the toe of her boot in the loose gravel, stirs up dust that clings to the leather embracing her feet, and shrugs her shoulders, tries to play the words off as nothing, but aside from the advantage of being a detective, that reading people is part of his job, he's learned her specifically within the last three months. That verbal blow from her ex left a permanent bruise. "I think he was right."

"No," Castle murmurs, stepping in closer and blocking the touch of his hand to her elbow with the wall of his back. There is so much he could say to prove her idiotic publisher's statements wrong, so many moments in his months of knowing her that strongly dictates them, but the words clog his throat like the gravel at their feet. "Kate, you're not alone."

The downward curve of her mouth rearranges into a gentle smile, the pearls of her teeth peeking from between the petals of her lips, and even if he can't say it, he hopes she knows it's true.

"Thank you, Castle," she replies, slowly stepping back, away from the soft graze of his fingers to the sharp jut of her elbow and returning her attention to the security fence in front of them. "Ryan and Esposito are coming, so I'd suggest you think up an observation about this fence unless you want to be teased for the next two days."

Rick follows her lead, studies the fence like he should have for the last five minutes, but his thoughts remain with her, continuing to replay the memory in his mind of how she had let him in that first night after only hours of knowing him. He doesn't care what her publisher says, if Kate Beckett has a wall then he has already catapulted to the other side of it and is existing somewhere within the confines of brick and mortar with her.

* * *

Their investigation of Melanie Cavanaugh leads them on quite the eventful road trip - to a home in White Plains to a talk with a father, Ben Davidson, who grieves and defends his daughter with a ferocity that Rick respects and understands, onto a coffee shop in Jersey where their brief interview with the man has sent them to meet with the cop who had once worked Melanie's case, now a sheriff with tired eyes.

Beckett doesn't like the man, Castle can sense it the moment they sit down across from Sheriff Sloan. He had noticed the tension that invaded her posture at Melanie's father's complaint of the former cop doing so little to pursue Melanie's disappearance, and he knew Kate had chosen a side, whether she herself realized it or not, but Castle didn't have that luxury, forced to remain objective.

"Melanie Cavanaugh. So, she was finally found after all these years, huh?" Sloan murmurs, glancing down to the case file spread open on the sticky table.

"She wasn't found. Her body was," Beckett answers him, her voice calm, but Castle can hear the underlying chill that Sloan doesn't pick up on.

"Oh." Sloan frowns. "Sorry to hear that. You know, from the moment I took the case, I figured it was gonna end bad."

"Her parents led us to believe that you were pretty sure that she'd run off," Castle informs him, rubbing his thumb in circles over the moisture collecting on the glass of his water.

"Her being found dead and her running off aren't exactly incompatible," Sloan shrugs, cradling the steaming cup of his coffee between his calloused hands. "Not with her history."

"Her parents also believe your investigation never made it past her history," Beckett points out, but Sloan waves her off.

"I was on a missing persons, not a murder. You have a dead body. All I had was a woman with a drug habit and a history of disappearing."

"And a husband who didn't report her missing for over a _day_ ," Beckett adds, the irritation in her eyes spreading to her shoulders, stringing them up high to hunch near her ears.

"Look, sweetheart, he cooperated." Kate stirs, her jaw squaring, and Castle places a hand on her knee, curves it firmly over her patella. "He voluntarily allowed CSU into their apartment. Anything I asked, he did."

"Did you know he was murdered, too?" Castle questions, learning his answer through Sloan's look of surprise. "Gunned down on the street over a year ago."

Sloan sits back in his chair at the reveal, raises his hands in supplication at the twin glares he receives.

"Hey, what do you want from me? We had reports of her in Philly with a meth head ex-boyfriend. I mean, it was what it was," Sloan huffs, earning a slam of Beckett's hand to the flat surface of the tabletop that nearly startles both men.

"But you didn't even go down to check it out," she argues, even as Castle's fingers tighten over her kneecap.

"Didn't need to," Sloan mutters around a sip of his coffee, as if it's nothing. As if this woman's disappearance, her death, doesn't matter in the least. "Had reports."

"Right," Kate mutters, flicking her eyes to the case file open in front of Castle. "From her husband's best friend, Charles Wyler."

Sloan follows Beckett's gaze with disinterest. "So?"

Castle holds back his own sigh of aggravation, his patience with the sheriff who lacks a moral compass wearing thin. "He's not exactly an impartial observer."

"The guy owned his own business. He had a family. He was a war vet. I saw no reason to doubt his word."

"Plus, Philly's a pretty long drive, isn't it?" Castle throws back, tracing the outline of Beckett's knee through her jeans to level his temper, but he can still feel it does nothing to quell hers.

Sloan tosses up a hand in exasperation. "She was only missing back then."

"No, Sheriff. She was already dead. You just didn't know it yet," Kate snaps, more venom in her voice than Castle thinks he's ever heard, and then she's pushing her chair back, letting the legs scrape across the floor, and stalking out of the coffee shop.

Castle does the same, striding out of the diner and following her into the frigid night air until they reach his Crown Vic.

"What was that?" he demands, coming to a halt in front of her and the locked passenger door.

Beckett focuses her attention to the buttons of her coat, but manages a shrug. "What do you mean?"

"You took over the interview for one thing," he lists, catching her eyes roll beneath her lashes. "But you were… you were _angry_."

"Well, aren't you?" she volleys back, lifting her head to quirk an eyebrow at him, her face blank and calm, a mask he's seen in magazines and television interviews. "You're a cop, Rick. One of the good ones, but guys like him-" She jerks her head towards the coffee shop over his shoulder. "Things only make sense if they fit in a box. So they make them fit and murderers go free."

"Is that what happened to your dad?"

The words are out before he can process them, stop them, and her lips immediately part, her brow creating a severe crease. "My dad?"

Castle swallows, in too deep to go back, and reaches for her wrist, brings her hand between them and brushes his thumb over the leather strap of the male watch that clings to her wrist. "You don't often wear it in public, but I noticed you have it when you're on a case with me sometimes. Do you wear it in memory of-"

Kate shakes her wrist free of his hand, cradles it and the watch to her chest while accusation flares hot and wild in her eyes.

"Why do you carry the keychain?" she counters, successfully throwing him off, and he buries his hand in his coat pocket out of reflex, fingers automatically curling around the mess of keys, the tiny blue butterfly that clings to the key to his apartment. "I'm a writer, Castle. I notice things too."

His phone rings from the opposite pocket, but he holds the battle of her gaze for a split second longer before breaking away, answering Esposito's call, and unlocking the car for Beckett, submitting to a stalemate.

* * *

By the next evening, they have more information, more clues, but still no killer. Night has fallen, Esposito and Ryan have gone home for the evening and if Montgomery was still in his office, he'd order the same of him, but he needs time with the murder board, the solitude of an empty bullpen and all the information splayed out before him.

But as he approaches his desk with a refill of coffee, he realizes he isn't alone.

"You're still here?"

Beckett's eyes flicker away from the murder board to spare him a glance and a tired smile. He frowns, swearing he can see grief hiding in the shifting hazel of her irises as she studies the contents of the board. He sees it all too often, the grief and sorrow she's so good at disguising, shrouding it beneath layers and personas he's watched her use on the media, but after spending all this time with her, he knows it for what it is.

"Reminds me of my mom's case," she admits when he leans next to her on the edge of the desk.

"Your…" His brow furrows and he turns his head towards her even as she keeps her attention trained on the whiteboard. "Your mother was murdered?"

She nods, a quiet breath slipping past her lips, and - oh, Kate. All this time… he should have known, should have put the pieces together sooner. Some detective he was.

"I didn't know that about you," he says, lamely. He speaks to victims every day, consoles them to the best of his ability with sympathy and well known understanding, but apparently he's turned into an insensitive idiot where she's concerned.

The corner of her mouth quirks. "It's not something I usually share."

Castle returns his gaze to his shoes, curls his fingers around the edges of the desk and takes a deep breath as he makes a decision he already knows is wrong.

"I lost my daughter."

Her head tilts towards him, empathy drenching her eyes, but not pity. He had received so much pity from so many when it had spread that he was the cop who lost a child, but Kate doesn't look at him like a victim. She meets his eyes with knowledge.

"How?"

"You first."

She smirks, dropping her head and allowing the curtain of her hair to hide her face.

"Stabbed in an alley when I was nineteen. I was home from Stanford for the holidays, we were all going out to dinner, but she was working late and when she didn't show, we didn't even…" Her shoulders shrug and she still hasn't emerged from the hiding place behind her hair. "They attributed it to gang violence. So, just like in this case, like Sloan, they couldn't think outside the box." The sigh that leaves her lips is shaky, the exhalation of breath carrying more than sadness, tinged with the same bitterness he had heard in the coffee shop yesterday evening. "Packaged it up nicely instead and the killer was never caught."

"Is that why you started writing?"

Beckett lifts her head, tilts it back to steal a breath, but still only gives him her profile.

"I was always writing, but before… I wanted to be just like her, Castle. I wanted to make her proud and follow in her footsteps. But after she died, becoming a lawyer or the first female Chief Justice felt pointless, so I put everything into writing crime novels. I was published a year later." She tilts sideways, nudges him with her shoulder. "Your turn."

He huffs but relaxes against the table, against her. "My mother had gone to pick my daughter up from school for me like she normally would on Wednesdays. They would have something to eat, go shopping – it was their _weekly girl's day_ , as Mother called it since Alexis's own mother hadn't been in the picture since she was a baby." He sighs, trying not to picture that late February day twelve years ago. "They were walking home, just like always, when a man stopped them. It was just supposed to be a mugging, but the guy was an addict, needed money for his next hit. The gun went off and my daughter-"

Kate's fingers cover his hand on the table as he blinks away the tears. He hasn't talked about Alexis in so long, not to anyone, and he almost forgot how much it hurts to relive the memories, the pain of losing her.

"Did you get the guy?" she murmurs, smoothing her thumb over the path of his knuckles.

Castle swallows, forces a steady nod. "He didn't even try to get away. Officers took him in the same night. He hung himself in his cell the next week."

"Does it hurt less?" she asks, her voice so quiet, more vulnerable than he's ever heard. "Knowing why, having that kind of closure?"

Castle flips his palm up, encasing the long slender fingers of her hand in his.

"No," he admits. "It doesn't hurt less, but it does make healing just a little bit easier."

Kate hums, holds to his hand just a little bit tighter. "I think I'll only ever have the justice I want in my novels."

"Does it help?"

"Sometimes. It helps others, helps people to believe that they're less alone."

He squeezes her hand back. He knows from firsthand experience how helpful Katherine Beckett's books can be, but he'll never tell her. He can't.

"Sex helps too," she adds on a hum, her lips spreading into a sly grin as she steals a glance at him through the corner of her eyes while he rolls his.

But his lips are stretched into a smile and soon they're both laughing, quiet and content in the empty darkness of the bullpen.

"I should go," she finally sighs, pushing away from his desk and dislodging the connection of their hands. "But Castle?"

Rick quirks an eyebrow at her in question, ignoring the irrational part of his chest that's already missing her. He doesn't even _like_ her – so he continues to tell himself – so why the hell does he wish she wasn't grabbing her leather jacket from his chair and preparing to leave him?

"You'll call if you have a lead?"

"Of course, Beckett."

She smiles at him and steps forward, causing his body to stiffen as she stands between his knees and leans into his space. Her fingers touch his shoulders as her lips touch his cheek, planting a chaste brush of a kiss to the skin near the corner of his mouth.

"I know you won't, but if you ever need to talk, just talk, you can still call," she murmurs just before she pulls away.

Beckett turns before he can even fathom a response, her heels clicking on the scuffed hardwood of the floor as she strides to the elevator. She offers him a shy wave of her fingers as the doors slide closed and he thinks he manages to wave back, but he can't be sure. His heart is still pounding stupidly hard from the press of her lips so close to his mouth and the way the familiar electricity is still sparking along his skin.

His mind still swirling with the information she's filled it with.

Her mother was murdered.

* * *

An hour after Beckett has left, he can't bear to stand staring at the murder board any longer. He can't focus on this case, not when another already has his attention.

Something about it feels wrong, like betrayal after she had told him about her mother's murder, but he still finds himself in the archives, locating Johanna Beckett's file without much trouble.

He hesitates before he opens the manila folder, that sense of wrong still strong and stinging in his fingertips. His gut is telling him to put the file back, to leave her past alone, to put it behind him like she has, but the desolation in her eyes when she had asked about closure, when she had concluded it was something she would likely never know, had ignited a need to help, to find her the justice she's only ever written about. So he sits down at the small table in the corner, switches on the desk lamp, and reads it alone, feeling his heart crack deeper for her with every word.


	8. Chapter 8

_How often lately had Derrick wondered - scratch that - worried, when he threw up his barriers and put himself in full Task Orientation Mode, if there might be this tipping point at which you can lose something of yourself you have been sheltering and never get it back._ _For instance, what happens when that hard coating you've developed to protect the most vulnerable part of you becomes so impenetrable that that part can't even be reached by you? The -_

Kate pauses, her fingers hovering over the keys of her laptop, but sure enough, the knock on her front door resounds through her apartment once more, and she hits the save button twice before pushing up from her office chair, snagging her robe from the armchair in the living room and shrugging it over her pajamas as she makes her way to the front door.

Her breath catches for a second at the sight of Castle on the other side, but his expression has her worried. The fact that's it's also two a.m. confirms that something isn't right.

"Hey Castle," she greets, stepping back to allow him inside. "I expected a call, if anything, but I guess this is-"

"I need to talk to you," he cuts in, harsh and… stricken? Kate furrows her brow, but nods her head in understanding as she closes the door and locks it behind him, even though she has no idea what could have rattled him so badly in the few hours since she had seen him last. "It's about your mother's case."

Her body goes still in the middle of the foyer, her ribs threatening to cave in, because if he's here, looking so distraught, and is talking about her mom's case, then he's done something.

"What - Castle, we just talked about this at the precinct and I-"

"What if I reopened it?"

Oh god. Oh no, _no_ \- he couldn't do this, can't do this to her.

"No," she scrapes out, her hands already trembling at the mere idea of it. "No, Castle, her case is closed. It's cold, it's-"

"But I haven't worked it," he argues, stepping towards her, but she staggers back, away from him. "Kate, I saw the murder board you have in your office that first night. I know you still want the closure and I could-"

" _Rick_." Her voice shreds itself over his name, shreds viscerally through her chest and past her throat, leaving her raw and torn with a single word. It stops him in his tracks. "You don't think I haven't been there? You think I just accepted her death and moved on, started writing again and lived happily ever after when my book was published?"

"Kate, I wasn't saying-"

"The officer who was at our door that night, delivering the bad news, continued looking into this case for me for _years_ ," she grits out, remembering the apology in Mike Royce's eyes every time he came up empty, every time he had to disappoint her. She doesn't want Castle to be like Royce. She doesn't want him to touch this, to drown in it. "I used every damn resource money could buy to get further, to learn the truth, but all it did was destroy me," she confesses, watching the almost mesmerizing shift in his eyes, the change from hard, determined cobalt to the softer touch of cerulean that spreads with rippling effect. Tentative relief unfurls in her chest, unhinges her bones from their rigid anger, but the piercing ache he's established in her chest still lingers. "It took me a year of therapy to finally see it, to pull myself out of the rabbit hole. So I've let it go, Castle. And it's not okay, but it's better. Don't you dare ruin what little progress I've made."

"I didn't know," he whispers, moving towards her with caution, cupping her shoulders with gentle palms, handling her with a tenderness she hasn't felt since… well, nearly a full three months ago when he had touched her for the first time. "I didn't know, Kate. I'm sorry. I just thought… I wanted to help."

"Would you want me digging around in your daughter's case if it was still open?" she demands, watching his face harden, his hands tightening on her arms. "Then stay out of my mom's."

"Okay," he agrees, digging his fingers into the soft fabric of her robe, drawing her in close, and she lets him, lets him cradle her there against the broad wall of his chest. "But Kate, if you ever change your mind for any reason… just know you wouldn't be doing it alone next time. We'd do it together."

Beckett swallows down the final vestiges of anger, the swirling sadness he roused from the darker parts of her, and nods in acknowledgment. She appreciates the effort somewhere in the whirlwind of unwelcome emotion he's elicited, she does, but she will never take him up on his offer.

She doesn't want to talk anymore, not about things that take her heart apart piece by piece, so she rests her forehead to his clavicle, inhales the comforting combination of his aftershave and deodorant, the lingering traces of laundry detergent clinging to his wrinkled dress shirt.

"You've been at the precinct all this time?" she murmurs, her words muffled into his sternum, but he doesn't urge her to move.

"I shouldn't have gone through her file. I'm sorry."

"Wasn't my question, but thanks," Kate huffs, feeling her lips involuntarily quirking when his body rumbles with quiet laughter. "You should go home, get some rest. We still have to solve Melanie's case in the morning."

"You should do the same if you plan on coming in tomorrow," he counters, rubbing her back, causing the idea of sleep to become all too appealing. She had been on her way to bed before he had stopped by, just finishing up a chapter when he knocked on her door.

"I had planned to, but Derrick was keeping me awake."

He scoffs, grumbles over the name he isn't yet too fond of, and she nuzzles further into his embrace, trying not to wish it could always be this easy. This unspoken thing between them is complicated, nameless and unconventional, but she's content in this moment, in the relaxed circle of his arms. They may be balancing on the line between partners and more, a line he pretends doesn't exist, but for now, they're just two broken souls finding solace in each other before reality comes crashing back in.

So she savors the solace.

"Kate," he murmurs her name with soft resignation, his lips so lovely against her temple, and she sighs, petulantly wishes he would just stay.

But it's never been easy between them and she isn't about to start placing hope in that changing, not yet, so Beckett lifts her face to meet his, surprised to find flickers of regret flaring to life in his eyes. She chokes him with confliction on a daily basis, she knows that, and any other night, she thinks she would take advantage of this moment, of the barely concealed yearning bleeding into his gaze.

Tonight, though, they are both exhausted and her chest is still a little too raw from the original reason of his visit, the phantom grief he had evoked, and so Kate merely rises on the tips of her toes, brushes her lips over his in a breath of a kiss before easing back down to the soles of her feet.

"Until tomorrow, Castle," she whispers, her hands falling away from his waist as she steps back, watching him battle the urge to follow after her.

"Can't just say 'night'?" he mumbles, his voice gruff but light, teasing, and Kate smiles back at him.

"I'm a writer, Rick. _Night_ is boring," she informs him, resting her head to the frame of her doorway while he backs into her hallway, drifting towards the elevator. "Until tomorrow is more hopeful. You make me feel more hopeful," she adds on a quieter note, diverting her eyes to her toes and coiling her fingers around the door.

The breath he sucks in is audible, but she doesn't lift her gaze, the door already easing shut, but not before she can hear his mumbled "Until tomorrow, Kate," slipping inside the apartment with her before he can disappear into her elevator.

* * *

Kate is at his desk the next morning, sipping coffee and poring over the case file once again, her gaze fluttering between the file spread out on his desk and the white board positioned in front of it.

"Beckett," he sighs, still exhausted from his own late night investigation and the trip to her place, from the hour he spent staring at the ceiling of his own bedroom, wondering what the hell he was doing with this woman.

"Castle, I think we need to take another field trip," she states the moment he reaches her and Rick cocks his brow at her. "You want to get into a killer's head, which we do, we need to go where the killer was and see the problems he had to face from his perspective."

"Consider me impressed," Castle mumbles, retrieving her coat from the back of his chair and holding it up for her, ignoring the ridiculous skip of his heart when her eyes light up. "Lead the way, Beckett."

Of course, she's the one to crack the case - spinning theories on the drive to Melanie's old apartment, coaxing him into viewing the murder from her perspective (and their killer's), and working through every step, every interrogation with him until the truth is revealed, until just like the night before, they're the only members of the four person team they've formed left in the bullpen at his desk that night.

He almost feels as if he owes her, not only for her hard work, but for the sense of partnership she's given him that Ryan and Esposito could never quite fill out, for the dark, raw pieces of herself that she let him see and handle with such recklessness.

"It was my daughter's," he murmurs, feeling her eyes land on him without having to lift his gaze from the keys he has soundlessly extracted from his pocket.

Rick brushes his thumb over the small cerulean butterfly, faded from the years of aging and his continuous touch, but still gleaming in the dim lighting of the homicide floor.

"For her birthday when she was six, I had no idea what to get her. Alexis was… she didn't ask for much, always happy with what she had. So the week before, I went to the mall, went a little overboard with my paycheck and bought her a handful of gifts I thought she might like. Of everything, she seemed to treasure this for some reason," he sighs, tracing the flared metal wings of the chained insect with his fingernail. "She carried it with her everywhere, told me it was her good luck charm."

"So you made it yours," Kate whispers, reaching out, but not touching his prized possession, merely grazing her fingertips along the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

"Yes," he nods. "And a reminder. Not that I would ever forget her, I just-"

"I understand," she murmurs, drawing her hand away and sitting back in the chair she pulled up to his desk during her very first day as his shadow. "So, tit for tat, right?"

Castle shrugs, tucks Alexis's keychain back in his pocket. "I wouldn't object."

Beckett sighs, melodramatic and with a grin gracing her lips, but the line of her mouth falls downwards as she lifts her wrist, dusts her finger over the face of the watch.

"As you know, it was my mother, not my father, but my dad took her death hard." He watches her throat bob, watches her gaze threaten to drift as the memories seem to swarm. "He's sober now. Five years."

Castle matches the proud, gentle hint of a smile she inherits at the words. He knows what it's like to deal with an addict, a grief driven need for release. He's relieved her father came out of it alive, unlike Meredith. Alexis's death had nearly driven his ex-wife to overdose within two months.

"So," Kate continues, her voice soft as her index finger taps the glass of the watch. "This is for the life that I saved, and this…" Castle's eyes follow her hand when it abandons her wrist for her neck, catching in a golden chain hidden beneath the fabric of her sweater. He leans in just a breath closer, careful not to spook her, to gain a better glimpse of the ring dangling from the edge of the necklace that she pinches between her thumb and forefinger, caressing the modest jewel in the middle. "This is for the life that I lost."

Never has his anguish for another person rivaled his own, but staring at Kate as she tucks the ring back beneath her shirt, placing her palm between her breast where the jewelry settles, and blinking once to keep it all at bay has his heart cracking, deep new fissures adding to the rest.

"Don't we make quite the pair?" she teases, even if her heart isn't in it, even if the curve of her lips is strained and unsteady.

"I don't know about that, but you definitely have enough material to give your Derrick Storm a tragic backstory," he muses, smirking when she cuts her eyes to him with a gleam of growing amusement forming in hers.

"I don't know… I was kind of liking this male stripper by day, cop by night idea I came up with recently-"

He tosses his pen at her and she laughs, catching the writing instrument in her lap when it bounces off her shoulder. Kate drops it onto his desk and begins to rise from her seat, stretching her arms above her head, and Castle quickly glances away, ignores the way his breath catches and his groin tightens at the stretch of her shirt, the strip of skin along her abdomen she managed to reveal for that split second.

"Want to share a cab?"

No. Bad idea. Like all ideas where she is involved.

Castle glances helplessly to his desk, to the finished paperwork and the lack of excuses. "I should-"

"Rick, it's a cab ride, not a date," she drawls, though he catches the subtle flash of hurt in the corners of her eyes, the edges of her mouth.

Damn.

"Sure," he sighs, mimicking her and standing from his office chair, shrugging on his coat and snagging his cellphone.

"Hey, what about your mother?" Kate asks, flipping the mane of her hair over her collar, but Castle stiffens, his coat suddenly too warm and heavy around his shoulders.

"What about her?"

"Well, you mentioned she and Alexis were close, so I just assumed-"

"My mother and I haven't spoken in years," he replies, clipped and curt, an end to that particular line of questioning.

"Was there… were you two-"

"Kate, you don't want me digging around in your past and I don't want you snooping in mine either, so just back off," he growls, shoving past her, but of course, she follows, trapping him in the elevator with her. He hates riding the elevator with her, being encompassed in a small space with the heat of her body at his side and the scent of her poisoning all of the air.

"I'm not trying to attack you," she reasons, crossing her arms but staring up at him with gentle eyes, eyes that soothe the pang of regret her mouth inadvertently induced. "I didn't know," she echoes his words from last night, and just like he did then, he wants her in his arms.

The elevator opens and Rick steps past her.

"I think I'm going to walk home."

"I can walk with you," Kate suggests, matching his pace all too easily, their footsteps echoing in synchrony as they stride through the lobby and out into the bitter night air. "No more personal questions, I swear."

Well, she does make an enticing offer.

"Fine," he mutters, slowing his brisk walk along the sidewalk to a more reasonable pace.

"Hey, when was the last time you had something to eat?" Beckett asks, nudging his side with her elbow.

"A few hours ago," Castle shrugs, his stomach growling at the memory of the granola bar that had made up his dinner while he'd filled out the last of his paperwork. "Why?"

"Because we worked through dinner and I'm starving," she quips, biting her bottom lip and quirking her brow at him. "Ever eaten at Remy's?"

The surprise bubbles out of him in the form of laughter, because of course, Kate Beckett somehow knows his favorite diner. "Yeah, you have too?"

"Oh yeah. They've got those amazing shakes."

"And those burgers… They're open all night, you know."

Kate loops her arm through his, a dazzling combination of hope and challenge illuminating her eyes under the glow of streetlamps.

"I do," she grins, turning the corner close to his side and strolling with him in the direction of the restaurant. "And Castle?"

Rick tilts his head towards her in acknowledgement, but Kate only sighs, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Thank you for telling me about the keychain, about Alexis," she finally murmurs, her gaze trained on the ground, something like grief flickering beneath the shade of her lashes.

Emotionally, this case battered them both, brought back memories of their lost loved ones, but it also brought them closer together, whether he wants to admit it or not. He doesn't know what they are, what they could be, but he doesn't mind straddling the line with her while they figure it out.

Castle untangles his arm from hers, snags her fingers in his instead and laces their digits until their palms can meet in a kiss.

"She would have loved you," he confesses, because oh, he already knows Alexis would have adored Kate Beckett. He has no doubt and it breaks his heart to imagine what could have been, to picture his daughter and his favorite author bonding, the brightness Kate has managed to retain throughout the darkness of her past combined with the joy and innocence Alexis radiated wherever she would go creating a beautiful image in his mind.

Kate skims her thumb along the bumpy path of his knuckles and squeezes his hand. "I have a feeling it would have been mutual."


	9. Chapter 9

The Angela Candela case is stressful to begin with, a large majority of their cases usually are, but especially one involving a child, and adding the FBI to the mix only aids in making matters worse. Kate Beckett taking an interest in Will Sorenson is not helping.

Rick is still not exactly positive _why_ the Feds contacted Montgomery and requested to specifically work with Castle's team when a homicide component had yet to come into play, but a little girl's life was on the line and he wasn't going to waste time complaining about his unfortunate new partnership with Agent Sorenson. Though, he would damn well take offense to the attention Sorenson is showing his actual partner and to the fact that Beckett doesn't seem to mind in the least, practically welcoming it.

No, Castle doesn't like that at all.

In fact, his blood boils when Kate takes a seat beside Will Sorenson instead of claiming her place in her chair next to his desk. Ever since the FBI agent had made an appearance in their latest case, Beckett had taken a special interest in the man, craving information about the federal agency, as if the NYPD suddenly wasn't good enough for her anymore. As if the detective she's been following around for the last six months is suddenly not enough for her. And he knows Sorenson is all too pleased with the attention, preening every time Beckett looks his way.

He hates them both.

Hates them even more when he catches Beckett's hand on Sorenson's knee, giving it a light squeeze as she sifts through security cam footage with him. It looks like an act of comfort, not flirtation, but it still has Castle jerking from his seat, all but stomping over to the two of them across the bullpen.

"Beckett," he snaps, harsher than he had intended but unable to lighten his tone. "Can I talk to you? Alone?"

She arches an eyebrow at him, confusion evident in her gaze, and a piece of him feels slightly guilty about that. He's always pushing her away, holding her at arm's length and denying her anything more than an unsteady friendship, the hold of hands every once and awhile and the occasional meal at Remy's, but he refuses to sit around and watch his… his writer be whisked away by some cocky, square jawed agent.

"Something wrong, Detective?" she drawls as he leads her away. The break room is full, a mixture of feds and fellow cops in every corner, so he guides her into one of the few empty conference rooms left available.

"Nothing's wrong, Beckett," he replies calmly while he leads her inside, shuts the door.

He watches as she drifts towards the table in the middle of the room, hops onto the edge and swings her legs back and forth with the innocence of a child. There are times when he wants to embrace that innocence through her, to capture it with a press of his lips and bottle it with the seal of their bodies, but he and Kate Beckett would never work. She would never settle for some damaged homicide detective who just happened to pique her interest and he could never handle the famous mystery writer who had barged her way into his life without his permission. They represent two entirely different worlds that should never collide.

Yet, they _have_ , his mind likes to remind him, and what a fantastic collision it had been.

"Then why is that tendon in your neck bulging?" she asks, quirking the corner of her mouth in amusement. "That only happens when you're really pissed. Usually at me."

"Not everything's about you," he mutters, crossing his arms and leaning back against the door.

"You're right. I think this is actually about Agent Sorenson." Her eyes flash with intrigue when his gaze cuts back to her. "I think you're jealous."

He scoffs, loud and disbelieving.

"Jealous?" he repeats incredulously. "You actually think-"

"What I think," she interrupts, easing off of the table, that childlike innocence fading, the air of a predator on the prowl taking its place. "Is that you don't like me hanging around other men, but especially not someone trying to bully his way into taking over your case."

He doesn't move as she draws closer, not stopping until she's only inches away and he can smell that ridiculous cherry flavor of her lotion. He hates cherries.

"I think you want me all to yourself."

She wears heels that elevate her height, lift her to his eye level, and she uses the advantage to hold his unwavering gaze. She's persistent, tenacious, and he could see her being a cop had her love and talent for writing not led her in a different direction. He wonders if he would want her any less if she were any different.

"I want nothing to do with you, Beckett," he informs her, clicking his tongue over the sharpened t's of her surname, but the words don't deter her.

She takes another step, nearly nose to nose with him.

"You're not a good liar when you're lying to me, Detective Castle."

He doesn't flinch when her nose brushes his, not when her eyes flicker to his lips or when her hands catch on the edges of his blazer.

"You're definitely jealous," she whispers, biting her bottom lip, as if she knows the quirk shoots arousal straight through his bloodstream.

"Why the hell would I be jealous of him?" he questions, keeping his voice low but firm, fisting his hands at his sides to resist from touching her.

The second he touches her, they're doomed.

"Because you don't want me writing about anyone but you," she points out, raising her eyebrows, and he refrains from chuckling at the expression, hates that she makes his chest bubble with the threat of laughter at all. He wants to hate Kate Beckett, he really does.

But he can't.

"I don't care who you write about," he shrugs, feeling his irritation flare when she doesn't appear the least bit offended by his attempt at an insult. "It'd make my life so much easier if you decided to go follow Sorenson around."

"You don't like easy," she says, tugging on him, but he refuses to move from his place against the door. "You like hard and raw and complicated. You like me."

"You're arrogant."

She shakes her head as she finally aligns her body to his, long lean curves pressing against him, bones fitting with his like puzzle pieces, daring his body to respond.

"I'm honest."

Fuck it.

He spins her around so fast she gasps, eyes wide and so very dark when he pins her against the door. They flutter shut when he kisses her, hard and punishing, but passionate. He can't help but pour everything he has into kissing her and she's so receptive, so responsive and alive against him, arching and writhing, trying to pull him closer with the hands that curl around his shirt collar.

She groans when he pushes a thigh between her legs, provides the friction she needs, and Rick coils his fingers around her knee, hauls her thigh upwards to hook around his waist.

"Castle," she hisses in what he assumes is meant to be a reprimand, but her teeth clamp around his bottom lip, her tongue slicking along the flesh, and his hips pitch forward, rocking into the welcome cradle of hers. "Don't you – _oh,_ don't you dare use me again."

Rick goes still at her words, recoils at the breathless threat, and stares down at her, so fierce, hungry for him, but vulnerable. Unwilling to let him leave this without a word again.

"Use you?" he echoes, his brow furrowing at the term. "I didn't - we-"

"We slept together and you left, what do you call it?" she mutters, withdrawing from him, even as she's still pressed up against the door. He's losing her. "We're past that though, I know, I just don't want to do it again. Not like that."

 _Not like that._

"Kate, I'm-"

"Yo, Castle, you in there?"

Kate's skull thumps back against the door at the sound of Esposito's voice from the other side, her eyes slamming shut in what he assumes is frustration that he can currently relate to.

"Yeah?" he calls back, wanting to prove her wrong, to insist that it had been more than a quick fuck in her bed, that he hadn't wanted to truly leave in the first place.

"The Candelas just got a ransom call, Sorenson's heading back to their place. Thought you should know."

"Thanks Espo," Castle returns, uncurling his fingers from Kate's thigh, regretfully taking a step back and allowing her the chance to straighten her blouse, comb her fingers through the hair he's tangled. "Beckett," he murmurs once he's certain there's no one left on the other side of the door that Kate already has her hand on the knob of. "You were right."

Her eyes don't lift from the door handle, but her brow does hitch in question.

"I want you all to myself and to see you spending time with another cop - or in this case, _agent_ \- upsets me and if that makes me petty? Fine. Guilty as charged," he mutters, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the dirty floor, frowning at the set of her fingers until they drift away from the door and she's coming for him.

"It doesn't make you petty," she informs him, cupping his jaw in her hands and holding him still as she smears her lips to his, staining his mouth with a kiss that is chaste but no less intoxicating. "It's actually kinda sweet."

"It is?" he mumbles, grazing his knuckles along her side, relishing in the shiver that wracks her ribs.

"It is. So you don't need to worry about me hanging around with Sorenson. He isn't the one I make out with in empty conference rooms."

He barks a laugh at that, has to bite his tongue to muffle the sound, but Kate Beckett is beaming at him, and for the first time since this dysfunctional relationship began, he starts to believe they'll somehow be okay.

"Yes, reserve that privilege for me alone," he chuckles against her cheek, enjoying the softness of her skin beneath his lips, the flutter of her lashes when he dusts a kiss to the corner of her eye before pulling back.

"Always," she hums, reaching for the door again, tugging it open this time and striding out into the bullpen. "Hurry up, Castle. We've got a little girl to find."

* * *

Her lips are still tingling from the sear of Castle's mouth, the taste of him still alive on her tongue, but it fails to distract her from the importance of this case, from the reminder that a little girl's life could be on the line. It does little to distract Rick either, who is growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress. A missing child is not something to be taken lightly, but especially not by a father who'd lost his own daughter.

Kate adds a touch of cinnamon to his coffee, stirs the mixture in the borrowed mug and hopes the sweet hint to his caffeine fix will make him smile, if only for a moment. They're all camped out in the Candela's home, awaiting the next ransom call that Angela's kidnappers had promised to make. They know Theresa and Albert Candela have the necessary funds requested in exchange for their daughter, it won't be long now.

"Hey, Kate." Beckett lifts her gaze from the coffee to see Sorenson in the kitchen doorway, eyeing her with a tired smile, and she attempts to tamper down her disappointment. Sorenson has shown blatant interest in her since the moment they shook hands in front of Montgomery - and her scowling partner - and while she found him nice, charming and handsome, he isn't what she's looking for right now. "That for Castle?"

Glancing down to the two coffee cups in her hand, she chews on her bottom lip. Probably should have made a larger pot.

"Sorry, I can make you a cup," she returns, taking a sip from her own mug and placing Castle's back on the kitchen counter. If Sorenson is taking a break, Rick probably will as well and it doesn't look like she's getting past the agent in the doorway just yet anyway. "How's it coming?"

"As well as can be expected for the moment," Will sighs, stepping inside and offering her a grateful smile as she restarts the coffee pot with a fresh serving of Colombian blend. "Waiting's always the worst part."

"Hey, this won't be like last time," Beckett assures him, recalling the conversation she had had with Sorenson earlier in the day, while she's certain Castle had assumed the agent was putting the moves on her. Will's last kidnapping case involving a child had ended badly, tragically, and she couldn't bear to imagine Angela Candela suffering the same fate. "You won't let it happen like last time. Neither will Castle."

Sorenson's brow quirks at the mention of her partner. "You really like him, don't you?"

"Castle?" she questions, playing dumb and diverting her attention back to the coffee cradled in her palms. "We're friends."

"Just friends?"

Kate bites her bottom lip once more, staring into her mug as if it holds the answer for her, because she sure as hell doesn't know _what_ they are. "We're… complicated."

"Ah," Will appraises, but he's coming closer, his eyes an electric blue and trained on her. Instinct urges her to step back, to avoid a potentially awkward situation, but the small of her back is already against the edge of the countertop. "Don't you think life is too short to waste time on complications?"

"Will," she hedges when his chest brushes against the fingers coiled around her cup, his hands rising slowly to her cheeks. Beckett lowers her coffee to the counter, turns her head against the cradle of his palm. "I don't think-"

" _I_ think you should take a step back, Sorenson."

She isn't sure if it is relief or embarrassment that floods through her chest as Castle appears in the kitchen doorway, his glare on Sorenson's back sharp enough to pierce, and Will withdraws his hands from Beckett's face, but doesn't move away.

"I'm pretty sure Kate can decide for herself what she wants me to do," Will throws back, glancing over his shoulder to meet Rick's quiet rage with a cool indifference, and god, this is ridiculous. Acting like jealous little boys competing for a prize that she refuses to be, especially while a child is missing.

"You're right, I can," Beckett informs him, placing her hand to Sorenson's chest, nudging him back an extra step. "And all I want you to do – both of you – is drink your coffee and find this little girl."

Kate tosses the remnants of her cup into the sink, snags Castle's mug and presses it into his hands before strutting past him. Alfred is still in his art room, expressing his frustrations through the spatter of paint on a blank canvas, and Theresa is curled on the living room sofa, her eyes closed but her hand cradling the phone. It's going to be a long night and she already needs a break.

Beckett nods to the FBI agent stationed by the front door of the apartment, her heels thudding quietly on the hallway carpet outside, slipping free from the building and taking a deep breath of the cool night air that embraces her. Her solitude is short-lived, though, and moments later, she hears the apartment building's door ease open, already recognizing the sound of his footfalls without having to look.

"You put cinnamon in my coffee."

Kate shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the building's front. "Looked like you needed the pick-me-up."

"I'm sorry for being an ass," Castle mumbles, taking his place alongside her, his coffee cup clutched in one hand.

"A jealous ass," she adds, noticing his lips quirk from the corner of her eye.

Rick nods in agreement, releasing a sigh that forms a dissipating cloud in the night air. "That too. It's unfair to Angela for me to be acting this way. And to you."

"You confuse me," she murmurs, staring up into the starless sky of city lights, the skyscrapers and their glow cast overhead, feeling Castle's confused gaze land on her. "I'm not yours. You don't want me to be yours and yet-"

"Kate-"

"It's not the time for this conversation," she concedes before he can say it, hating that she's allowed it to come up at all, but - oh wait, she actually had a point to make. "But you need to know that despite the fact that you have no claim to me, neither does Sorenson. There's no one to be jealous of."

"No man could ever claim you," Castle chuckles, but from the sounds of it, her reassurances have lifted the ridiculous weight that her time with Sorenson had brought upon him.

"Glad that's your takeaway," she huffs, playing along and swaying to the side so her shoulder can merge with his in a friendly bump. Like she had told Will, just friends.

But Castle's unoccupied hand rises to drape along her jawbone as he shifts to stand in front of her, a gesture that speaks of more than a friendship, that has her heart accelerating into a tentative and unsteady beat. "Beckett," he calls for her attention and reluctantly, she allows it, her eyes scaling his chest, lingering hesitantly upon his chin before biting the bullet and meeting his gaze, surprised by the severity of it, the fierce shade of blue. "That wall I told you about? I know I said... I know this hasn't been easy, but I think it's-"

The shrill buzz of Castle's phone steals the rest of his sentence and the disappointment feels like a punch to her gut. He had been on the verge of telling her something, something _important_ , but it was merely their luck to be interrupted. For the second time in one day.

Kate sighs, tilting her cheek into the cup of his palm and offering him a small, tired smile. "Answer your phone, Detective. It may have to do with the case."

He nods, dropping his hand to retrieve his cellphone from his coat pocket, answering the person on the other end of the line with the clipped greeting of his surname.

* * *

"I don't like this." The female FBI tech has already wired Beckett up, threading it under Kate's blouse and ensuring the listening device functioned without issue. He couldn't believe he had agreed to this, that he was standing in a missing little girl's bedroom, watching his favorite author get suited up to make an arranged money drop. "These people are dangerous, Beckett. You need to stay alert and focused."

"Castle, it's going to be fine," she waves him off, adjusting the buttons of her shirt, nodding to the agent as she leaves the room.

The kidnappers had called earlier that morning, while they had been arranging the seven hundred and fifty thousand, and had given instructions on when, where, and how their money would be delivered. Upon Beckett's insistence and Theresa's request, they had also provided proof that Angela was still alive and after a tense negotiation between Sorenson and Angela's parents, Alfred growing unwilling to cooperate with anyone of law enforcement in fear of upsetting those in charge, Kate had stepped forward as the civilian who would make the money drop.

Rick couldn't argue that it was the best plan they had, and he already knew that Beckett worked well under pressure. But it wasn't her that he doubted. Arrangements like this went wrong all the time, miscommunications occurred or unexpected disasters happened, and if he had to witness another person he cared about take a bullet for being at the wrong place at the wrong time...

"Just – be careful, okay?"

Beckett pauses in readjusting her shirt, concern flaring in her gaze, but Castle is already moving to walk past her, heading back out to join Sorenson and the rest of his team camped out in the living room. Kate catches his arm before he can reach the doorway.

"Hey, it'll be okay," she promises him, her hazel eyes flickering gold with it, but promises mean nothing, _are_ nothing against people with guns and the intent to kill. And it is quite possibly the worst thing he could do, but Rick curves his hand at her nape, holds her steady as he presses a bruising kiss to her mouth.

"Better be," he mumbles, fingers fisting in her hair for only a moment before gentling against her scalp, kissing her again with less urgency as Kate curls her hand around his wrist, laces her arm around his neck. "Don't want to lose you, Beckett."

"You can't," she sighs out, bumping his nose with hers. "You're stuck with me, Detective."

* * *

Seeing Kate Beckett carrying around a two year old with a beautiful smile on her face, sharing giggles and soft coos with the recovered child has something that he thought had died long ago stirring in his chest.

"Looking pretty smitten there, Detective Castle," Sorenson quips from his side, but Rick's returning scowl is lacking its usual malice.

"Just impressed." Castle shrugs while Beckett retrieves Angela's bunny from the park bench.

"Why? You were the one to break the case, figure out the stuffed animal element," Sorenson reasons, studying Kate and the Candela's daughter beside him curiously.

"Yeah, but I don't think it would have even occurred to me if I wouldn't have found her knocked out in Angela's room that night, surrounded by a horde of those stuffed animals."

It had caused him to think of his own daughter when he had wandered into Angela's bedroom in the middle of the night to find Kate Beckett asleep in a rocking chair with a stuffed dragon tucked underneath her folded arms. Alexis had been grossly attached to her favorite plush toy as a child too, Monkey-Bunkey tagging along everywhere they went, and Angela with her stuffed rabbit had proven to be the same.

"Beckett is… dedicated," Sorenson concedes, admiration in his eyes that has the jealousy rising in Rick's chest for the hundredth time, the mixed urge to protect and posses whirring through his ribcage. "To both the cases and to you, it seems."

Any lingering flare of jealousy is washed away through the wave of surprise. Castle holds his poker face well, of course, but shakes his head in response. "She's… something."

"If I were you, Detective-"

"Sure you want to finish that thought?" Castle warns, curving his brow at the agent, but Will merely shrugs in return.

"I was only going to say that I wouldn't let her get away. Especially if she likes you, since that's no easy task."

"While it was a pleasure to work with you, Agent, I look forward to your departure," Castle mumbles, though, the strange urge to smile is tugging at the corners of his lips as he starts towards Kate.

 _She likes you._

"Likewise, Castle," Sorenson chuckles, but the entirety of Rick's focus has already shifted to the woman swaying in front of him with a grinning little girl in her arms.

"You have to stop breaking my cases for me, Beckett." Kate glances up, her smile widening, offering him a glimpse of her teeth through the parted petals of her lips.

"Or you can just keep me around, ensure your closure rate never falters," she hums, sparing him a wink before returning her eyes to the girl in her arms, who reaches insistently for Castle. "Oh, you want to go see Mr. Castle?"

"Kate," he hedges, a familiar lump in his throat swelling up, sending him an instinctive step back. "You're good with her, I-"

"Pretty sure you're irresistible, Rick," Beckett murmurs, offering him an apologetic look as Angela whimpers, because of course she understands his hesitance to hold a little girl for the first time since… well, since he had held his own child for the last time. But Angela is outstretched towards him with wiggling fingers and wide eyes and Castle sighs, accepts the two year old from Beckett and automatically props her on his hip.

It doesn't have to mean anything, doesn't have to force him into being choked up. It's just a little girl, just-

"Look at you," Beckett coos, stepping in close and tickling Angela's sides, easing some of the visible tension from Rick's spine as he watches the exchange, the little girl giggling, infusing him with warmth that spreads through his limbs and eradicates some of the naturally chilled places in his bones. "Hi beautiful. Your mommy and daddy are going to be so happy to see you."

"You guys look cozy," Esposito comments, passing by the two of them and Rick straightens, shoots the other man a glare that merely earns a smirk in response.

"I think we can go now," Castle decides, nodding to Sorenson and starting towards the black SUV with Angela still bouncing at his hip, clinging to one of Beckett's fingers and dragging her along with them.

"You okay?" Kate inquires while two agents work to assemble the car seat from Theresa Candela's sister's vehicle into the backseat. Castle glances to the woman pressed into his side due to Angela's tugging little hand and oh, how he wants to kiss her, soft and slow and with her body melting into his.

"Yeah," he murmurs, lifting the hand that isn't supporting Angela and brushing his fingers over Beckett and Angela's intertwined ones. "I'm okay."


	10. Chapter 10

"Bro, you look pathetic."

Castle glances up from his desk to see Ryan and Esposito staring back at him, pitying expressions on their faces that he doesn't understand nor welcome. "And why is that?"

"The poor guy," Ryan sighs, propping his elbow on the edge of his desk and resting his cheek in his hand. "He doesn't even realize he's been gazing longingly at Beckett's chair for the past week."

Rick tosses a spare pencil at him, missing when Ryan dodges and smacking Esposito in the chest instead.

"I am not _gazing_ , I am trying to fill out the last of this paperwork so I can be out of here before we catch another murder," Castle snaps, signing his name at the bottom of the form with a little too much force. Because he _had_ been sneaking glimpses of Beckett's chair, and yeah, with some longing in his chest since she had left earlier in the week.

After the Candela's case had been closed, Beckett had worked a few more cases alongside him and the boys before informing him that she had to fly out to Los Angeles the following week for a round of publicity gatherings and an important meeting with the head of Black Pawn. The book was in its final stages, the story nearly complete from what Kate's told him, but he knows her agent, Jonathan, had been hounding her recently, complaining about her lack of time in the papers and on TV screens.

"I'll be back in a week," she had sighed the night of her flight, standing with him in the break room with the door only partially open and the blinds drawn. "Call me if any interesting cases pop up?"

"Sure thing, Beckett," he had chuckled. "Call me if Jonathan drives you to commit a murder of your own?"

"Of course, no one I would trust more to help me hide the body," she had quipped, wriggling her eyebrows at him. "Though, we should probably bring Lanie along."

"Smart thinking," Castle had praised, knowing he was making her late, but not wanting her to go and _hating_ himself for it. It was one thing to tolerate having her around, but another to _want_ her there, to loathe the idea of her leaving for seven short days. "Call me when you land too?"

The smirk had curled along the corners of her mouth, so enticing and maddening all at once. "Awful sweet of you wanting me to check in with you at one in the morning, Detective."

"Shut up and go catch your flight, Kate."

She had chuckled and swayed towards him, her eyes darting towards the cracked doorway before pressing a kiss to his cheek. "See you in a week, Castle."

Calling him at night, after she had completed her responsibilities for the day, had become a habit he had grown to look forward to, answering her from his desk when the bullpen had cleared or from his bedroom while he slid beneath the cold sheets at the end of a long night. Discussing murder one moment and the absurdities of her job in the next, laughing over the boys' antics or one of her run-ins with a fan, talking with her about everything and nothing late into the night had become far too important to him. It crossed lines and boundaries he himself had drawn, but he couldn't help it.

Kate Beckett made him too damn happy.

"When does Becks get back anyway?" Esposito asks, tossing the pencil in the air and catching it with his fingers before aiming it at Ryan's head.

"She's going to kill you if you keep calling her that," Castle chuckles, reshuffling the shrinking assortment of paperwork, sectioning the finished forms off into a separate pile. "But she should be flying in sometime tomorrow."

Ryan already has some sort of remark to make, he's sure of it, but the vibration of his phone on his desk silences them all, withholding breath as Castle reaches for his phone, and no, not another murder.

"Or maybe not. It's Beckett."

The boys both slump with relief. They've had a busy week, unable to catch a break amidst the unending string of homicides, and while Castle is always the last to leave, even he is itching to make it out of the precinct by five today.

"Beckett," he greets, toying with the pen in his fingers, scrunching his brow at the bustling sounds of traffic, both human and otherwise, on the other line. She normally only calls him from the quiet privacy of her hotel room. "How's LA treating you this evening?"

"LA treated me fine," Beckett returns, grunting at the accompanying noise he can hear echoing around her. Was that an intercom? "New York could be kinder, though."

"New York?" Castle repeats, clarity and ridiculous excitement blooming through his chest. "You're back early?"

"I finished all of my business commitments yesterday and while sunny Los Angeles was fun, I was becoming a bit homesick," Kate admits, the blaring sound of a horn prompting him to ease the phone from his ear. "Though, I'm beginning to reconsider."

Castle chuckles. "Do you need someone to come pick you up from the airport?"

"You offering?"

"Perhaps."

"I should have called earlier," she sighs, the cacophony of noises surrounding her going quiet, muffled by the slam of a door. "I just hopped into a cab, but I would have much rather preferred your cruiser to escort me home."

"Even though it has that spring that always manages to jab you in the ass?" he teases, lowering his voice to prevent his two nosey fellow detectives from listening in. More than they already had, that is.

"Your company would have made up for my pain," she replies and he really wants to see her already.

"Would meeting for dinner make up for my lack of chauffeur services?"

"It's a possibility," Kate muses. "Would you mind if we ate in, though? Because dinner on a couch in some sweats sounds like a dream right about now."

Never would he have imagined such a proposition coming from this world famous crime novelist, and somehow it makes him want her even more.

"Sounds perfect. I should be done here in an hour."

Beckett responds with a contemplative hum. "So my place at seven then?"

"Yeah," he murmurs, tampering down the apprehension rising in his chest. "I'll be there."

"Great. I look forward to seeing you, Detective."

Castle chuckles and twirls the pen still dangling between his fingers. "Likewise. And uh, Kate?"

"Yeah?" she answers after a quick exchange with the cab driver.

"I'm glad you're home."

He thinks he can imagine her smile, can hear it so clearly in her soft response. "Me too, Rick. See you in a couple of hours."

They disconnect and Castle lets out a breath, disgusted to notice that his cheeks are warm and his ears are burning, and the boys are once again watching him with shit eating grins.

"Get back to work."

"Whatever you say, Boss," Esposito quips, but the smug grin on his lips fails to dissipate. "And do tell Becks we said hi tonight."

Castle slings another pencil towards his colleague, the cup of writing utensils on his desk becoming bare, and hides his own smile, burying it in the last of his paperwork.

* * *

A comfy evening on the couch with Rick had sounded amazing on the way home and despite the butterflies plaguing her stomach, she wasn't nervous. She had just… she hadn't seen him in a while is all and she just wanted their dinner together to go well, smoothly and without complication. Since 'complicated' seemed to be their theme most days.

Beckett's eyes land on her bed, unwelcome memories of the single night he spent in her apartment flickering through her mind, and she scrapes a hand through the mess of her drying hair in frustration. Her body felt so much better, so much more refreshed and relaxed after her hot shower, but now it was all wound up again because of _him_.

Kate steps into her favorite pair of yoga pants, tugging the worn fabric up to her hips and snagging a loose sweatshirt from her bureau, assessing herself in the mirror with uncertainty. It wasn't her most attractive look, but Castle wasn't coming over for a date. Rick was her friend, nothing more, and friends could have dinner at each other's homes without it being an issue.

Maybe if she repeated the words enough she'd believe them.

The knock on her door startles her away from the unnecessary assessment of her loungewear, excitement combatting the nerves in her stomach while she slips from the bedroom and jogs towards the front door. Kate smoothes her hand down her shirt, runs them through her hair, and takes a deep breath before realizing how ridiculous she's being. It's just Castle.

Her partner of sorts, whom she had slept with over six months ago, whom she still had a silly crush on, whom she could possibly… care deeply for.

She had missed him.

"Hey," Castle greets her with a lopsided grin once she finally tugs the door open, his arms cradled with two bags of takeout and… flowers? "I just thought… here."

Kate accepts the colorful bouquet he nudges towards her, a smile blossoming across her lips, spreading to ache along her cheeks.

"Thank you, that's really sweet," she murmurs, caressing the elegant lilies and the vibrant array of carnations with her gaze while she steps to the side, allows him the chance to come in.

"How was your flight?" Castle inquires, drifting towards the kitchen to place the food on the island.

Beckett shuts the door, locking it out of habit, and trails along after him, already intent on hunting through the top cabinet for her best vase to house the flowers he brought her.

"Not too bad," she shrugs, lifting on her tiptoes to close her fingers around the vase of her choice, her breath hitching in her lungs when Castle steps up behind her, his chest grazing her back as he retrieves the glass container for her. "Thank you."

"No problem," he returns with another grin and wow, she can't remember the last time she's seen Rick Castle smile so much. "I hope Chinese is okay."

"Perfect. No city does Chinese food like New York," she sighs, waving him off when he points to the food, asks about plates. "Out of the container is fine with me."

She does grab a fork for Castle before they can transfer to the living room though, knowing he's not a fan of chopsticks.

"Was Jonathan accepting of your early return?" Rick questions, arranging the varying takeout containers on her coffee table while Kate plucks the remote for the television from the back of the couch, plops down beside him once he takes a tentative seat on her sofa.

"Does it matter?" she scoffs, arching her brow at him and watching satisfaction glimmer through the electric blues of his eyes. "But no, like I said, I was finished with everything business related there so it wasn't an issue."

 _You just want to get back to that bullying detective of yours_ , her publisher had sneered at her the night before her flight and she had slammed the door to her hotel room in his face, sank back against it with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

She hated that Jonathan was right, that she had missed Castle when she knew for a fact that he couldn't have missed her. Sure, their nightly phone calls had been fun and he had always sounded happy to speak with her, just as excited to hear about her day as she was to hear all about his, but she had come to the conclusion that it was only because she was across the country, not in the same city, unable to annoy him with her presence.

"Beckett? You okay?" he murmurs, nudging her knee with his own, and Kate glances up, notices a container of their dinner already in his hands.

"Yeah," she assures him, grabbing a box of orange chicken and her packet of chopsticks, sinking back into the sofa and handing him the remote. "Tell me about the case you closed this morning."

Castle has only been inside of her apartment once, if she failed to count the night he held her in the doorway after almost reopening her mother's case, but he operated her television system with ease, surfing through the channels until he came upon a movie they could both agree on to play in the background.

He began to fill her in on the cases she had missed, going into gruesome details over the asphyxiated plastic surgeon that they had found with a plastic bag duct taped over his head, guiding her through the twists and turns of a case that had turned out to be a mob hit, surprising her with the mention of Will Sorenson.

"He was shot?" she echoes, her eyebrows hitching to her hairline.

"Yeah," Rick sighs, setting down his serving of mu shu pork and raking a hand through his already disheveled hair. "I shouldn't have dragged him into it, but I knew he had the resources and I just thought - I shouldn't have pushed for it. I never liked the guy, but if he would have died… all because of me-"

"Castle." Kate leans forward to relinquish her dinner to the surface of the coffee table, shifting on her side to face the guilt-ridden man sitting next to her. "This wasn't your fault."

"Are you sure about that?" he murmurs, his voice low, sullen. "Because their vehicle was attacked leaving our meet, one I pushed to have arranged.

"There is no way you could have known that was going to happen."

"We were followed, Kate," he sighs, defeated and tired. "Someone who knew about the investigation found out about the meet. We led them to Moran, the mobster from Witness Protection that I dragged him out of. So, yeah, I should've known. And if I were a better cop, I would've."

Her lips part for a moment, so many words fighting to break free, so many arguments and assurances on her tongue. "Fine," she relents, staring down the profile of his face, the downturned curve etched into the corner of his mouth. "You pushed for it. In every case I've seen you work, you're always pushing as hard as you can. Not because it's your job, but because you care."

Castle lifts his head from its hung position, gives her the slightest hint of his attention, and the ache in his eyes, the midnight shaded shame swirling in his irises, has her scooting closer to him.

"Castle, most people, come up against a wall, they give up. Not you. You don't let go. You don't back down. That's what makes you extraordinary."

She thinks that for the first time since she's met him, he looks like a little boy, scared and lost, but with hope sparking in his eyes, like he so desperately wishes to believe her.

"I could say the same about you, Beckett," he murmurs in return, a smile trying and failing to tug at his lips, but she doesn't need his smile. Not now.

Kate rolls her eyes and moves to slide her arms around his neck, carding her fingers through his oily hair and ignoring the stiff set to his shoulders.

"Beckett-"

"Shut up and let me hug you," she mutters into his ear, relishing in the subdued sound of his laughter, in the tentative return of her embrace. It doesn't take him long to relax in her arms, his rigid muscles loosening, the broad wall of his body curling in around hers, accepting her offering of comfort.

"You're an extraordinary man, Rick," she repeats, cradling the back of his skull with her palm when he drops his forehead to her shoulder. She wants to tell him how she only wishes he could have been the cop who had handled her mother's case, that justice for Johanna Beckett could have been sought by someone on the force who actually cared about the victims like Castle did, always does, but the air is already too heavy with emotion and she's already said too much. "Why do you think I chose you as my muse?"

He scoffs into the curve of her neck, pulls her closer with the arm around her waist and the hand tucked into the backs of her curled in knees. It's the last way she could have fathomed her evening with Richard Castle going, but Kate huddles into his embrace, savors the lingering scent of his aftershave and the warmth emanating from his chest.

It's not what she had expected, but she wouldn't change it.


	11. Chapter 11

Kate blinks awake to her mattress shifting beneath her, to the knock of knees into her shins and the tightening bands of arms around her upper body. Squinting through the gritty haze of slumber, she glances upwards to see Castle, his eyes still shut and his face slack with sleep, tugging her closer against his chest after his body had adjusted to lie flat on her couch. He's used to sleeping on couches, she recalls dazedly while she fumbles for the remote on the edge of the sofa and silences the quiet hum of the television; she had found him napping on the break room couch more than once.

At least her leather sectional was far comfier.

The light in the kitchen is still on, casting more light than she's used to, but the living room is dim enough for her to close her eyes without the lights piercing through her lids.

Kate tugs on the fleece throw blanket slung across the top of the couch, drags it down to drape across her and the parts of Rick splayed out beneath her. Her body curls naturally into him, burrowing into the cove of his chest without thinking, and pressing her cheek flat above his breastbone.

She had looked forward to sleeping in her bed again tonight, but Rick's arms cinch tighter around her, secure and warm, his heart beating like a lullaby beneath her ear, and she thinks this may be better than her soft pillows and memory foam mattress.

* * *

Castle jerks awake at the loud buzz of his phone, sending uncomfortable vibrations up and down his right leg from its place inside his back pocket.

"Turn it off," Kate grumbles into his shoulder that goes completely stiff at the sound of her voice, her head rotating against his chest to press her face into the side of his neck instead, her body settling once more and a cool breath exhaling across his throat.

It was his fault they had ended up like this, he recalls now as he fumbles for his phone, maneuvering his arm beneath him with bated breath in hopes of not waking her again. He silences the device before he even spares a glance to the screen, his gaze too busy assessing the woman curled against his side, half her body atop his chest while the rest of her limbs have become weaved with his, too intricate to break free.

He had been the one to surrender to his guilt, to accept the warmth of Kate's embrace, the comfort her scent and her body pressed to his so easily provides, and after nearly 36 hours of so little sleep, Rick had allowed the solace of that moment with her to drag him under. The steady rise and fall of Kate's breathing accompanying his as he'd drifted off had him inclined to believe that her exhausting week had sent her along into slumber right after him, and while he knew this was bad, that is would likely complicate the tangled web of their relationship even further, he can't find the will to regret it.

He doesn't regret coming to see her, doesn't regret allowing her to hold him through the anguish that had been drowning him since he had caused Agent Sorenson to become laid up in a hospital bed, and he doesn't regret waking up with Kate Beckett's body entwined with his either. It complicates things further, but he won't leave her to wake alone for a second time.

"Castle," she mumbles, fisting one of her hands in the collar of his dress shirt and his arm tightens around her by reflex. "Stop thinking so loud and go back to sleep."

Rick relaxes back into the couch, pursing his lips as Beckett snuggles in closer, and closes his eyes. He would let it go for tonight, he would, but oh how he didn't look forward to dealing with the consequences of cuddling on Kate's couch with her in the morning.

* * *

"Castle, hey," the murmur of her voice and the gentle shaking of her hand at his shoulder has him floating up from the depths of slumber, breaching the surface of awareness. "Wake up."

Rick squints through the slits of his eyes at the command to see Kate hovering above him, sunlight from the window behind the couch spilling over her shoulders, filtering through her hair. He reaches for her without thinking, still half asleep even as he draws her closer with a hand to the back of her neck. But Beckett catches his wrist, coils her fingers around the bone and squeezes his hand as she sits back on the knee that had aided her in balancing over him, stabbing into the cushion near his hip.

"Someone's been calling you all morning," she informs him and now that he's had the chance to adjust to wakefulness, the grit of sleep disintegrating from the corners of his eyes, he notices that her lips are pursed in a thin line and an uncomfortable wire of tension has her spine standing stiffer than usual. "And texting you," she adds, releasing his hand and lifting from the sofa. "I didn't read them, but I saw it was someone named Meredith and she's in desperate need of her _kitten._ "

Oh god.

Rick sits up on the couch, ignoring the cellphone he's neglected all night, waiting for his attention on the coffee table, in favor of Beckett, following her into the kitchen instead.

"Kate-"

"You don't have to explain to me," she cuts him off before he can begin, stiffly pouring herself a cup of coffee from the fancy looking machine on her countertop.

"Meredith is my ex-wife," he explains anyway, because _of course_ he has to explain to her, especially after only a few weeks ago he had practically thrown a tantrum over the mere idea of her with another man.

He continues to tell himself that they have no claim on one another, but… but this proves his theory all kinds of wrong, doesn't it? He sees her with another man, any man that isn't him, and he has the urge to throw things. Kate notices another woman calling him throughout the night and into the early morning and she freezes him out. The two of them are doomed, ruining each other for other people.

"Meredith and I… if she had never gotten pregnant, we never would have stayed together for as long as we did," Castle continues, focusing on the slender bones of Kate's fingers as they trace the rim of her coffee mug. "And after Alexis… after we lost our daughter, we didn't keep in contact. I buried myself in my work and as an actress, so did she. The only times she calls me are when she's coming to visit."

"She wants to see you?" Kate asks, her eyes still downcast, her expression blank, and he swears she would make a fine detective, would excel so fiercely in interrogations with that poker face of hers.

"Most likely," he answers honestly, bracing himself for this next part that he isn't exactly proud of. "We always meet up when she drops in once or twice a year."

The implication is there, hanging between them, and the ripple of jaded green in Kate's eyes when she meets his ensures that she understands all too well.

"Two people who dealt with the same tragedy seeking comfort in one another," she assesses with a nod, not judging him, but oh, she's definitely not happy about this. "I sought the same kind of release after my mom was killed. It helped me forget for a night, a few hours," she mumbles, her voice quiet, as neutral as her face, and he isn't used to this side of her, the colder, darker side of Kate Beckett that he has a feeling was far more present in the first few years after her mother's death. "Alexis will be between the two of you forever."

"I… yeah," he sighs, watching her lean back against the edge of the counter, her coffee held close to her chest, allowing the steam to rise and billow around her face, caressing her cheeks and hiding her eyes.

"I can't begrudge you of your coping mechanisms," she mumbles, the line of her throat bobbing with a thick swallow and… wait, she thinks that he's actually going to leave to be with Meredith right now?

"Kate," he huffs, eradicating the distance of the kitchen between them and striding towards her. "I am not going to sleep with Meredith."

She hardly looks convinced.

"Beckett," he growls, confiscating the coffee from her hands and receiving a menacing glare for it. "I _can't_ sleep with her."

Her irritation doesn't fade, but her brow furrows, confusion lacing with her frustrations. "Why?"

Castle hesitates, his throat going dry as his tongue turns to a dead weight in his mouth. The answer is already there, threatening to crawl past his lips, but he knows the moment it slips free, everything will change.

"Why, Castle?" she repeats, crossing her arms and Rick sighs, resists the ever-present urge to touch her.

"She isn't you."

Her entire frame goes still, her chest seizing at his words and he notices his own breath has been captured, held hostage in his lungs. Oxygen slowly leaks free as Kate narrows her gaze, studying him, desperate to understand.

"I don't… what the hell are you saying, Rick? What are we _doing_?" She doesn't stop him when he touches her cheek, brushing his knuckles along the cutting slash of her bone. Her lashes flutter, her eyes scaling his lips before flickering up to hold his gaze. "What do you want?"

Such a loaded question, so many complications attached to the single syllable that sits poised and ready on his tongue. He wants to be different, not so damaged and wounded, ready to run from her the moment things become difficult. Because that's what he excels in most, as his mother had reminded him with one final barb a near decade ago.

 _At least I can still feel things, Richard. It's far better than running away, than burying yourself in your work and not feeling anything at all._

It seemed as if everyone else in his life had the capability to move on, to handle their grief with elegance and grace, but Castle… he fell down the rabbit hole of it, buried in so deep that it's fruitless to even try climbing out. But for Kate, he wants so badly to try, to be the man his daughter had made him proud to be.

He wants to be good for her.

"I want…" His throat is dry, his attempt at words sticking so badly he has to clear them out with a rough swallow. "I want this."

Crackles of light breach the murky shadows of her eyes, faint flickers of hope hesitant to form within her gaze, her face.

"This," she repeats, her voice nothing more than a soft exhale, her hands rising to claim his. Her fingers lock around his wrists like human handcuffs, ensuring that he isn't going anywhere and suffusing his skin with the warmth of her touch. "What is _this_ , Rick? Us?"

"There is no us." It flies from his mouth by reflex, words they've thrown at each other before, before he can catch them with his teeth, but it's the best answer he can give her, the best answer _for_ her-

"Like hell there isn't," Kate growls at him, the fingers around his wrists flexing hard. The passion in her eyes, the fight, steals his breath for a moment, beautiful enough to stall the mild panic swirling through his chest, but the anger sparking through her gaze doesn't allow for much admiration. "Like hell do you get to decide that. I have been following you around for months, Castle. There was an 'us' before I showed up in your precinct and like it or not, there's an 'us' now."

"Beckett-"

"We slept together, but we never talk about it," she states, presenting the facts like a lawyer on the stand, ready to cross-examine, but the wound of that night bleeds into her eyes, stains them black. "You kiss me, but we never talk about it. We spend the night on my couch, wrapped in each other's arms, innocent enough, but I already know it would have been buried along with everything else."

His heart is in his throat now too, crowding with all the complicated words and phrases that are tangled up like a noose threatening to asphyxiate him right there. She's furious with him, but she's fighting for him, for this battered thing between them, and he doesn't have a valid argument to present against her.

"You can deny it all you want, but we have something and you want it." Her eyes flare with ferocity, that fatal hope still hiding in the shadows beneath, disintegrating with every second of his prolonged silence. "Or should I be using past tense?"

His heart is throbbing in his throat, but he chokes past it. "No."

Beckett leans back, the bottom of her spine bumping the edge of the counter at her back, waiting.

"Kate." The line of his body follows hers, chasing, and she arches an eyebrow in challenge despite the uncertainty he can see brewing beneath her confidence. She watches him as he drifts in closer, her lashes fluttering when his forehead bumps with hers, and Castle breaks free of the fingers restraining his wrists, cradles the sharp angles of her face in his palms. "I do want this, but I just… I don't know if I'm ready for it."

The soft exhale of her breath coats his lips, coaxes him closer, but Kate's fingers caress his jaw, her thumb pressing against the seam of his mouth before he can even consider the idea of kissing her.

"What do you need to be ready, Castle?" she murmurs, her voice gentle, and her eyes tender when they rise to meet his.

Rick sighs, traces his thumb along the papery thin skin beneath her eye. It may not be the right choice, but if Kate is willing to fight for this, why can't he? Why can't he at least work towards giving it a shot regardless of the final outcome?

"Time?" he decides, not exactly certain, but taking this slow, removing enough of the bricks that hold his wall together for Kate to slip through is the best first step he can think of. And that will most definitely take time.

Kate nods, swiping her thumb along the corner of his mouth. "Okay, I can wait."

"Beckett, I don't want you to have to-"

"Castle," she huffs, tilting forward on her toes to brush a whisper of a kiss, so very different from every other kiss they've shared, so very good, to his lips before she drifts out from the cradle of his palms. "You're worth waiting for."

* * *

Beckett places the coffee on his desk and lowers into her seat beside his desk, attempting to subdue her smile when he glances up, his lips lifting and his eyes warm as they meet hers. He's been giving more lately, no longer withholding his smiles, the soft caresses of his gaze. Ever since their talk in her kitchen just a single month ago, since they had come to an agreement of sorts, sealed it with a gentle kiss, a truce, before they had finished out the morning at her kitchen table over coffee and comfortable silence.

It's been so much easier since they had essentially vowed to work together, work towards something worth waiting for, since he's stopped holding himself away from her and allowing this tentative thing between them to bloom and grow in the form of platonic dinner dates at Remy's and innocent moments spent alone in the bullpen, the break room, her hand in his and the heat of his body close by her side.

It's been so much easier since she's stopped having to wonder where they stand.

"So you're coming to my book party, right?"

Castle lifts the travel mug and she patiently waits for him to take his first sip, watching with a smirk as he savors the spread of caffeine through his system. He claims to be so independent, but after so many months of having her around, he depends on her for at least one thing.

Morning coffee.

"Oh, your book party for the book that has yet to be released. When is that again?" he questions, his brow knit with thought, and Kate frowns at him in disapproval, until she notices the corners of his mouth twitching.

"Castle," she huffs, nudging the arm atop his desk with her knuckles. 'Storm Gathering' is in the final stages of editing, her rough draft of the entire novel submitted only a couple of weeks ago. She's never written a book so fast before, hasn't even come close since her early years of writing Collette Stryker, but with Castle, especially after these last few weeks, these last few months of watching him… she's been inspired. "It's a _pre_ release book party to hype things up. The book will be out by the end of the year and now people will know what to anticipate."

"Still not coming as your date," he murmurs, cutting his eyes to Ryan and Esposito, busy taking advantage of this rare morning reprieve, having breakfast in the break room. "But I'll be there."

She hums and unfurls her fingers atop his forearm, caresses the bone of his wrist with her thumb before withdrawing her hand to her lap. "All I ask."

"I, uh, was actually thinking afterwards, though…" Kate's brow quirks with intrigue and she subtly leans in closer, pretends to study a file on his desk while he struggles through the rest of his sentence.

"Yeah?"

"If my schedule holds up, I'll have that night off," he explains, his eyes remaining strict on the keys of his computer. "Would you maybe want to come over? Watch a movie or something?"

"Depends," Kate muses, waiting for the curious rise of his gaze to collide with hers, surprised to find his eyes an uncertain shade of blue. She'd made Richard Castle nervous. "What movie?"

His body relaxes in his seat, shoulders lowering from their hunched position, the lines of his face softening and his lips spreading into a crooked grin that she's grown to adore, especially since it only ever appears for her.

"How do you feel about John Woo? We could do a double feature of The Killer and Hard Boiled."

"The bloodier the better," she quips, a titillating mixture of delight and arousal swirling through her stomach at the bright ripple of approval through the pools of blue.

"A woman after my own heart, Kate Beckett."

"Mm, indeed."

He chokes on his coffee and she sits back in her chair, pleased with herself for that one.

"So, should I pack a bag? Not – not to be presumptuous," she backpedals, not wanting to evoke the familiar panic in the lovely sea of his eyes, currently calm for a change. "Just something to change into after the party. Curling up for a John Woo marathon in a Herve Leger dress isn't very ideal."

"Maybe not for you," Castle throws back and it's her turn to stare back in shock, to contain the spill of excitement through her veins. He was playing along with her, wading through the shallows before they edge farther out towards the deep end; he was attending her book party and planning an innocent movie date. He was trying, giving her reasons to have hope in the idea of them, of more.

Rick chuckles and rouses his desktop to life with the wiggle of his mouse, types in his password and averts his eyes to the awakened screen, but the smile still adorns his lips. "Yeah, you should pack a bag, Kate."


	12. Chapter 12

Castle finds himself at her door only a handful of days later, unable to stay away even with the promise of a movie night at his place occurring in only a matter of weeks, another bouquet of flowers in his arms. It's not his style, showing up unannounced, with flowers no less, but after he'd texted her the address for the crime scene that morning and she had shown up with fresh coffee, her usual smile of greeting on her lips had fallen away, dissipated from her face the second her eyes had landed on the body.

"Kate," he'd murmured, attempting to block her from seeing the middle-aged woman slumped in an alley, her body slit from the drag of a knife, too much. Too similar.

She had dropped the coffees.

"Come on, let's go," Rick had prompted, gently attempting to turn her away with the hand on her arm, but Beckett had shaken her head, released an exhale through parted lips that trembled.

"No, no, you have to – you stay. I'll just – I'm going to take a breather," she had told him, forcing a strained lift of her lips before snagging the hand at her elbow, giving his fingers a squeeze before turning away, shoving her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket and striding away with her head down.

That had been hours ago.

She hadn't come into the precinct after that, hadn't responded to the text messages of concern he'd sent her, and he'd grown worried. And yeah, maybe he had missed her for those few hours too.

Apparently, he can't even make it a day without Kate Beckett around anymore.

Castle knocks, waits patiently to hear the soft padding of bare feet on the other side of the door, the momentary pause before she eases it open, and… she's been crying. A lot.

"What's wrong?" he asks immediately, his mind jumping to each possible worst case scenarios, even though he already has his suspicions, dropping the flowers in favor of stepping towards her, lifting a tentative hand to the tearstained skin of her cheek.

"Nothing," she chuckles, far too raspy for his liking as she catches his hand, smoothes her thumb to the inside of his wrist before guiding it away from her face.

But her eyes are bloodshot, the surrounding skin swollen and red, and like hell is this nothing.

"Those for me?" she inquires, nodding to the brilliant bouquet of rich colors from the street vendor that made him think of her, that had ended up on the floor next to his feet.

"Oh, yeah." Castle quickly bends to scoop up the bundle of carnations and lilies with his hand, dust off the cellophane before extending the bouquet to her. "I just thought you might - I was kinda worried when you didn't show up today."

Kate accepts the bouquet with a sigh, her fingertips caressing petals that he envies, and steps back, allows him to come inside. "I'm sorry, I should have texted you back, let you know I wasn't feeling up to it today."

"Are you sick?" he questions, studying her face while he follows her to the kitchen, but she doesn't look physically ill like she had at the crime scene, just… sad.

"No, I'm fine," she assures him with a pathetic attempt at a reassuring smile. She still has the old set of flowers he had brought her over a month ago, the shriveled up stems and petals making a mess atop the island, and he watches her gingerly remove them, replace them with the fresh batch.

"No, you're not," he argues quietly, studying her under the soft rays of light bleeding into the kitchen, the beams of afternoon sunlight curling in her hair and brushing kisses to her hollow cheeks. He ventures closer to graze his knuckles to the slash of bone, watches her lashes fall to lie against her pale skin, the black fringe a sharp contrast the porcelain flesh. "What's wrong, Kate?"

"You're a detective," she scoffs, tilting her head away from the touch of his hand to open her eyes to the flowers. "You already know."

"I shouldn't have told you to come this morning," he sighs, dropping his arm to his side and ignoring the protest bubbling on her lips by opening his own. "A few years ago, I was working a case and the victim was a seventeen year old girl, a student at Columbia, flaming red hair and bright blue eyes. She could have been Alexis all grown up and I had to rush to the nearest trash can the second I stepped on the scene, spent five minutes puking up my breakfast."

She shifts closer to him, her fingers hooking at either side of his waist, and he lets her, welcomes the tentative fit of her body resting against his, her head at his shoulder and his chin at her crown.

It's no longer such a foreign sensation to experience the innocent warmth of her against him, to embrace it, find sanctuary in her and offer a haven in himself in return.

"It's not her, I know it's not her, but just seeing that woman stabbed in the alley – it felt like seeing those crime scene photos all over again," Kate breathes, her fingers fisting in the sides of his shirt, and Castle bands his arms around her back, holds her tight enough to feel the uneven rise and fall of her ribcage scraping against his.

"I manage to forget sometimes," he confesses, dipping his head to touch his lips to the line of her hair. "That you live with it every day."

"Like you do," she shrugs, but he bites his tongue to refrain from expressing how he believes there's a difference.

The grief of missing his daughter will never fade, but at least he had gained the small comfort of knowing that the man who had killed his little girl had suffered the fate he deserved. The bastard who murdered Beckett's mother is still out there and it eats at him, has been gnawing at his guts every day since he had snuck down into archives and read Johanna Beckett's file.

Her mother deserves justice and Kate deserves the closure that comes with it.

"Can I stay awhile?" he murmurs, lowering his lips to her temple, dusting a kiss there and inhaling the intoxicating mixture of vanilla and cherries, the oil of skin and distinct scent of Kate Beckett buried beneath it all.

Her lashes flutter against his chin as her head lifts, her gaze glittering but assessing, searching like she's seeking evidence, a motive behind his actions, but he was still balancing on his side of the thin line between them. They had agreed to move slowly, but they were still moving, working towards being _more,_ and he considers brushing his lips along her skin an innocent form of progress.

"Sure. Coffee?" she replies, swaying in his embrace, her body angling towards the kitchen, but Castle is hesitant in releasing her, splaying his hands at the small of her back and closing his eyes when Kate's forehead falls once more to his collarbone and her face crumples against his shirt.

"You're okay," he murmurs, senselessly, but seeing her like this, so helplessly torn up over a murder that too clearly resembled her mother's, slices at his heart and all he wants is to fix it, to help her heal.

Like she helps him.

"It's going to be okay," he promises her, cupping her shoulders in his palms and fitting his cheek against hers.

She had warned him not to touch her mother's case and the last thing he wants to do is hurt Kate, defy her trust, but he was _good_ at his job and all he needs is a chance to prove it to her. And if he comes up empty, if the case is as cold as ice and truly too lost of a cause to pursue, then he would leave it alone.

In the meantime, he had to try. For Kate.

The heat of her breath burns through the fabric of his shirt as she nods against him.

"I know," she murmurs, nudging her nose to his cheek, resting there for a long moment before her lips quirk against the skin of his jaw. "Thanks, Castle."

But he already hates himself a little bit for this entire plan.

* * *

Beckett knows when the assistant at Black Pawn who handles her fan mail contacts her with an "urgent message" from a 'Martha Rodgers', that it can't be good, not when she realizes who the woman is.

Kate had learned the basics of Rick's backstory quite early on – a deceased daughter, a mother whom he no longer had any contact with, and a father who had never been in the picture to begin with. He had only spoke the name once, but she remembers it – Martha. Martha Rodgers, who is trying to contact her the day before the book party, persistently calling Black Pawn until Natalie is requesting to put the older woman through to Kate's cell, informing her that Martha is insistent, that it's important and that it regards her son, Richard Castle.

She takes the call.

"Katherine Beckett, darling, it's such a pleasure to speak with you," the woman greets over the phone, her voice vibrant, warm like the summer, but weary like an incoming storm.

"Ms. Rodgers, it's-"

"Oh, dear, no," the other woman huffs. "Please, call me Martha."

"Martha," Kate corrects, standing in line at a nearby coffee shop, waiting to place an order for Castle's morning caffeine fix. "I don't mean to be rude, but why are you calling me?"

Martha sighs, long and tired, some of the poised sophistication leaving with the breath. "It's no secret that you are close with my son, Richard."

"We work together," Kate replies, but her teeth snag in her bottom lip, because that's not the whole of it anymore, is it?

"Yes, I'm aware, and I… I by no means wish to bother you, but my son and I – I haven't spoken to him in so long. I have no way to reach him, to know how he's doing, if he's even alive at times," his mother admits and dread churns in Kate's stomach, swirling thicker with every word out of Martha's mouth. "My greatest fear is learning that he was killed in the line of duty, or, hell, hit by a taxi in the street, and never having the chance to… Roy tells me he's doing well when he has the chance. Though, I try not to call and inconvenience him too much either, but the last time we spoke, he mentioned you."

Kate holds her breath. "Oh?"

"You make my boy happy, apparently," Martha muses and Kate feels the warmth climb her throat, flush her cheeks. "I simply wanted to thank you for that."

"Martha," Kate sighs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and curling an arm at her stomach; it feels wrong, talking to his mother when he's always bristled so harshly each time the woman has ever come up, but she needs to know. Has to know what it was that tore this mother and son apart, what has Castle holding a grudge that Martha has obviously tried and failed to overcome. "What happened between you and him? Castle won't talk about it, but he told me about Alexis and it sounds like the three of you were close before."

His mother is silent on the line for a long moment and Kate's running out of time, moving closer to the counter, and she's worried the other woman may have even hung up-

"When Alexis was… after we lost her, Richard just couldn't cope," Martha begins, no eloquence to accompany her words this time, no brilliant warmth, only an ache that Kate can feel through the phone. "He completely shut down in a way I never could have anticipated and he swore that he didn't blame me, but I think part of him always did, always will, and I accept that. But it made the resentment he held towards me, towards Alexis's murderer, towards the world, impossible to breach."

She'll grab his coffee later, for now, Kate steps out of the line, drifts towards the opposite side of the café, where an open booth against the window calls to her while Martha seems to collect herself, picks up the story once more before Beckett can even think to respond.

"Grief is… a visceral thing and I never expected the wound of losing a child to leave him, but I suppose I never expected to lose him to the depths of it either. I always thought we would eventually learn to live with it together, but I lost my granddaughter and my son in the same day. It's been thirteen years since Alexis died, twelve since I last saw Richard, and I'm… I'm not doing well, Katherine," his mother reveals on a shuddering breath while Kate's lungs go still. "I realize it's easier for Richard not to see me, perhaps it's healthier, but if I could just – it is and never will be my intention to take advantage of you, dear, but if you could simply mention-"

"I have a better idea," Kate cuts in softly, but she's not sure it's a good idea at all.

In fact, it's a sure way to lose him just as thoroughly as his mother has.


	13. Chapter 13

Walking the red carpet is utter torture, every step through the sea of flashing cameras, every shout of his name accompanied by "it's the real Derrick Storm!" pure hell, but it's for her, he reminds himself. Kate Beckett will be standing at the end of this forsaken finish line, and - just as she told him last month - she's worth the hardship.

Rick still breathes a deep sigh of relief once he's entered the building and the doors have shut on the photographers behind him. He could be charming, he could play the roles necessary in an interrogation, but he was never meant for the bright lights, the cameras and attention, and it has him wondering all over again what he's doing with a famous author.

But then he sees her through the crowd, the shine of her hair, the length of her legs, a glimpse of a stunning white dress with accents of gold, and all of the oxygen in his lungs is gone, his heart clogging his throat, and he remembers exactly why.

"Castle, you made it," Montgomery greets, approaching him with a drink in hand and reaching forward to straighten the lapels of Castle's suit. "And I must say, you clean up quite nice."

"Thank you, sir," Castle returns, attempting to focus solely on his superior, not the gorgeous novelist dancing with Lanie across the floor, but Roy Montgomery was a detective once too.

"Beckett will be happy to see you," the captain comments with a grin, his brow arching with the curve of his lips. "Pretty sure she's been watching the door all evening."

"Probably waiting for Patterson, she told me she's eager to make him jealous with the turnout," Rick chuckles, allowing his eyes just a moment to stray, to linger on the snug fit of the white, Herve Leger dress she'd mentioned clinging to her body, a beautiful contrast to the gold of her skin, the caramel of her hair.

"I won't hold you up for long, Detective," Montgomery murmurs, the smirk on his mouth growing soft when Castle glances back with heat in his cheeks. "But have I ever told you how Beckett and I met?"

Rick's brow furrows. "Uh, no. I think you've specifically _not_ told me."

Roy shrugs, but there's a hint of amusement in his eyes that confirms Castle's theory; they both know he's dropped plenty of hints in regards to learning that particular backstory.

"After Kate's mother was murdered, one of my former detectives made it his mission to close the case for her, find the killer, but he never did and I think that Beckett knew he wouldn't, that it was damn near impossible. So she took it into her own hands," Montgomery reveals, and for the first time since he'd arrived here a few minutes ago, Castle's attention is trained on something other than the allure of Kate on the dance floor.

"She… she told me she fell down the rabbit hole for a while," he shares, witnessing the brief pass of a cloud through Montgomery's eyes, something dark and shameful shadowing his face, but it's gone within a second, a single blink.

"She snuck into my precinct at least once every week, made it all the way down into the archives using her writer's imagination and Royce's badge, pretending to be a rookie or an intern – whatever she could use to get past the desk sergeant – and she sat there for hours, sometimes entire nights, poring over her mother's case file."

A case file that Castle has in his desk at his apartment right now, tucked away in his top drawer, copied onto his homemade murder board.

"I was working late one night, went down to archives to pick up some old reports, and I caught her down there. When I found out who she was, just some amateur novelist who'd slipped into a restricted area, I was furious," Montgomery recalls, something reminiscent in his eyes, a tie between incredulous and proud. "But then she told me why she was there, what she was trying to do, who her mother was. I sat down there with her for over an hour, even tried to convince her to join the academy, become a cop, but she was so dead set on her writing, the only thing keeping her afloat. And frankly, I don't think she trusted me or the justice system after over a year of waiting for a break in a case that was never coming."

"So what'd you do?" Castle murmurs, the image of her so young, holed up in the archives with a flashlight in her hand and the file on her lap so clear in his mind. It has to have been at least ten years ago and it has him wondering if they'd ever crossed paths without even knowing, how it could have been if it would have been him to locate the unauthorized civilian in the archives, how they could have tackled this case together so long ago.

"I kicked her out of there and ensured she'd never be back. And then I promised her I'd keep looking, that I'd never let the case go truly cold, and I haven't," Montgomery murmurs, the conversation growing serious, too serious for a book party glowing with twinkling lights and bubbling laughter that he recognizes. "I never gave up hope that somehow Johanna Beckett's case would break, but over the years, Beckett and I both became realistic about it. She became friends with my wife while I became friends with her father, she knows my children - she's almost like a daughter to me herself," Roy sighs, his gaze straying towards the woman in question, but Castle doesn't understand the frown carved deep into his captain's lips, the odd flicker of something troubled in his darkened eyes.

And then a horrifying possibility strikes him – what if Montgomery knows exactly what it is he's doing?

"Sir, why are you telling me this?"

"Like I said," Montgomery picks up, taking a deep breath through his nose, exhaling steadily through his mouth. "Beckett and I both became more realistic over the years. She'll never stop hoping, but one thing I've learned… some things are better left unsolved."

Awareness climbs Castle's spine, a red flag waving through his mind, but he's arrested by the pin of Roy's stare when the older man meets his eyes, revealing a secret Castle isn't sure he understands.

"Having Beckett at the precinct has been a good thing, for both of you, but I've consistently worried about her drifting back towards her… obsession. Recently, I noticed the file for her mother's case has been tampered with, taken out of the precinct without permission-"

"I took it, studied her file," Castle informs him before this can go any further. "But I brought it back."

And he had. He had just made a copy of all the information first.

Montgomery narrows his gaze on him, strict and stern and more intimidating than Castle would like to admit.

"I only wanted to know without having to drag Kate through the misery of retelling it, that's all," Rick assures him, but his captain looks far from placated.

"Like I said before, Beckett's been good for you, it doesn't take a genius to see that, but you've also been good for her," Montgomery states, glancing over his shoulder at the distant sound of heels clicking nearby. "Don't contradict me on that."

Castle swallows just as Kate comes into view over Montgomery's shoulder, weaving through the crowd with a smile blooming on her lips as she notices him.

"Hey, Castle," she grins, squeezing Montgomery's shoulder as she passes, and Roy shoots him a warning glare before patting Beckett's hand.

"I'll see you two later," his captain excuses, earning a grateful lift of Kate's gaze as the older man disappears towards the bar, and Castle attempts to settle his uneasy heart, the sense of _wrong_ swirling through his stomach.

Because something was definitely wrong, something far more than just protectiveness for the younger woman Roy viewed as family embedded into that conversation, but he doesn't have the time to mull it over, to cross-examine every word. Not when Kate is redirecting all of her attention onto him and all he can do is stare at the masterpiece of her body in this dress, fumble for words to describe her.

"You're killing me," he blurts, grinning as she ducks her head, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and biting her bottom lip, still so bashful when it comes to her fame and his compliments. "Stunning, Kate. Truly stunning."

"Not so bad yourself, Castle," she replies, drifting in closer, and he wants nothing more than to touch her, to drape his hands at her waist and memorize the sensation of sinuous curves and soft skin beneath thin fabric, but they're in public, all of their friends and important people that he's never met surrounding them. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, just not… used to this," he admits, but Beckett extends her hand to him, her long, slim fingers wiggling in invitation.

"Just stick with me," she murmurs, clasping his hand in the embrace of hers when he accepts the call of her warm palm and drawing him in closer.

In her heels, a ridiculously high pair of strappy stilettos that sparkled when the light hit them, she's just an inch or two shy of his height, her eyes level with his, her mouth, and he caresses the seam of her lips with his gaze, watches the shade of her irises darken ever so subtly.

"Rick." And he hates when she uses his first name, how easily it undoes him. "I have to hang around here for at least another hour, so stop looking at me like that."

A laugh slips out of him and he gives in, grazes his free hand along her side to mollify the rush of his need. "Sorry, can't help it."

Her cheeks flush and her eyes glimmer with radiance, gold sprinkled through the mélange of jaded amber, and Kate tugs him with her towards the dance floor.

"Kill time, dance with me," she murmurs, releasing her grip on his hand once they're in the midst of the few attendees occupying the floor.

It's a small space compared to the bar, the lounge area that has all of her books on display, cover art advertisement for her upcoming series, and he catches Ryan and Esposito snickering over drinks on one of the plush sofas, shooting him a thumbs up that he rolls his eyes in response to.

"You invited children to your party," he mutters, but Kate merely grins, shoots the boys a look that has them both sheepish and returning their gazes to their drinks. "Also, not fair that they listen to you better than me."

"I help balance out all the testosterone," she muses, the corner of her mouth quirking as her arms lace loosely around his neck, her fingers toying with the fine hairs at the base of his skull.

"Or you cause it to spike, depending on the situation," he volleys back, earning a gentle pinch to his nape that has him huffing, but the smile never leaves his lips. "Has everything been going okay tonight?"

"Mm," she hums, her eyes drifting over his shoulder towards one of the book displays. "So far. Just a lot of socializing, interviews, photo ops – makes me wish I'd been a ghost writer sometimes."

"Nah, Beckett. You were made for the dust jackets," he objects, squeezing her hip and stroking at the base of her spine with his thumb, attempting to diffuse the tension he feels lining her vertebrae, but it only lessens by a fraction.

She shakes her head, assaulting him with the scent of her hair, and turns her face into his. "I'm glad you came."

Rick's brow furrows at the sigh of her voice, the trouble in her tone, the remorse, as if she's… seeking forgiveness for something.

"Kate?"

Her spine stiffens and he glances downwards, catches the lift of her gaze and follows as it lands on the entrance of the building, on the older woman in a brilliant but subdued blue gown and red hair that still shines like a beacon wherever she goes. Martha Rodgers, his mother.

"How… how the hell did she get in here?" he rasps, realizing he's gone completely still and Kate is attempting to draw him off the floor, towards the wall.

"I invited her."

His eyes swing back to her and his entire body goes rigid, has her hands sliding from his shoulders to fall from his arms, all of her falling away from him, leaving him shocked and furious and in mourning.

"You… _what_?" he whispers, hoping he's misunderstood somehow, that she didn't really-

"I can explain, if you'll let me," she answers, the lovely line of her throat rippling with a rough swallow. "There's a private room where I practiced for my speech to the left. Wait in there while I talk to your mother."

His lips part with indignation, his chest on fire with it, but she's already striding past him and pasting that fake, charming smile onto her lips for his mother, whom she invited to this party, and – yeah, he needs to find that room she mentioned before he loses it.

* * *

Martha Rodgers looks almost as anxious as she feels when Kate approaches, her thin fingers fidgeting with the gold clutch in her hands, the pink line of her mouth trembling with the attempt of a smile she wears.

"Katherine, you look gorgeous, darling," the older woman states once Kate reaches her and she sighs, tries to breath past her nerves, the fear of losing him, for the sake of his mother, who so badly wants to see him again.

"So do you, Martha," she returns, allowing his mother to take one of her hands, give it a firm squeeze.

"I take it Richard has taken note of my appearance?" Martha sighs, sorrow breaching her eyes, so intensely blue, just like her son's.

"Yes," Kate hedges, glancing back towards the spot where she had left him, finding it empty and hoping this means he followed her direction and relocated to the private lounge. "I'm going to talk to him-"

"Dear, I don't want you to go to any trouble-"

"No, he… this isn't fair, to either of you, and I would have meddled in this eventually," she tries for humor, shrugging one of her shoulders, but even while Martha forces another smile, she can see the genuine hesitation in his mother to stay. "He loves you. He's just afraid to, afraid to love anyone since Alexis."

Martha releases a shuddering breath but nods her agreement. "You really do have him figured out, don't you?"

"I'd like to think so. More than anything, I just understand him," Kate confesses, chewing on her bottom lip as the trepidation dances through her insides. "I should go talk to him."

"Well, alright," Martha concedes, letting her go. "I'll just wait over here by the bar."

She hopes she can return to his mother with good news. And with her heart still intact.

* * *

The crescents of his nails are cutting into his palms as Kate finally comes through the door, her chest trembling with an attempt at a deep breath while she shuts it behind her, releases the handle and turns to face him. She looks almost surprised that he's here, that he listened to her; she looks hopeful and that pisses him off even more.

"I know you're angry," she begins, but Castle scoffs, because angry? _Angry_ doesn't even scratch the surface of what he's feeling right now.

"The one thing I asked you not to do, the one thing you knew would hurt me," he growls, gritting his teeth to keep the rage in its place, knowing that nothing will come of screaming at her, but he's just so… so confused and hurt, and god, he's devastated. He wants to love her, he wants to love her so badly, but she's ripping his heart to pieces before he can even offer it to her. "How could you do this?"

"Castle," she whispers, coming towards him, but he jerks back, away from her. He'll lose it if she touches him. He can't – he can't handle the contradicting remedy of her touch when it's by her own hands that he's been crushed. "Just listen to me-"

" _Listen to you_?" he echoes incredulously, but Kate lifts a hand in supplication, her eyes pleading, already seeking forgiveness he can't yet fathom giving, but he needs to hear her out.

Regardless of what she's done tonight, Kate Beckett has proven in the last seven months that she cares deeply for him, and she wouldn't do this to him for the sake of a story or her own satisfaction; she had a reason and he needs to know what it is.

"Your mother contacted me yesterday morning," she admits, the guilt a slow burning fire in the darkness of her eyes. "I was picking up your coffee when the secretary at Black Pawn called me, told me this woman who claimed to be Richard Castle's mother was calling nonstop and it was urgent, so I let her put the call through and – god, Castle, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you, but she's – she's your mom and she just wanted to see you."

"Then why couldn't you _tell_ me this the second you got to the precinct yesterday?" he demands, striding back towards her, desperation surging in his chest, beating like a tidal wave against his ribcage. "You were with me all day, Kate. You had a million opportunities to tell me she called, what she said, but instead, you hid it from me, waited until this stupid party to spring all of this on me like some twisted surprise-"

"She knew you'd never agree to see her-"

"Neither you nor my mother know what I would have chosen to do," he snaps, his jaw aching with the tension spreading to inhabit the harsh bone. "You have no idea how I would have reacted-"

"Like hell I don't!" Kate hisses, her own jaw squaring with irritation, frustratingly gorgeous. "You would have refused to see her, then you would have shut down on me, backed out of coming tonight, because you can't face it. Can't face anything that makes you feel."

"Oh, like you can?" he mutters, scowling down at her. "Like you faced your mother's case?"

Kate's nostrils flare, the fire in her eyes lit and raging now, and shit, he hadn't meant to say that, to play dirty by bringing _her_ mother into this.

"Because you're so much better," she snarls, advancing on him in the small room, toe to toe, chest to chest. "Too afraid to open up to anyone, to forgive your mother, to remember what happened. Hiding in your daughter's murder just like I hid in my mom's-"

"Watch it," he warns her, but Kate fails to heed his words.

"You could be happy, Rick. You _deserve_ to be happy," she grits out, the sincerity burning in her eyes, but it's overshadowed by the anger, the disappointment. "But you're afraid."

"Don't begrudge me of my coping mechanisms," he snaps, his voice low, controlled, but on the verge of breaking. "At least my way of handling things is real. You just bury your issues in a page."

The moment he spits the words at her, he regrets them, his lips burning with the acid of them as Kate bristles, swallowing hard as if he's physically struck her, as if she's holding back tears. But when she meets his gaze once more, her eyes are dry, a murky brown simmering with the dying embers of gold.

"Everyone handles grief differently, Rick. You chose to become a cop, to find justice for those who were wronged like yourself," she growls, taking a step forward, her heels leveling their height, providing him with a perfect glimpse into the fury and the… the intense pain flaring in her eyes. Oh no, no he hadn't meant to- "I chose to write and be there for people in a different way. It doesn't make my pain or my healing any less real."

"Beckett-"

"But maybe you were right all along," she concedes, his heart already sinking even as he stares at her in confusion, but Kate is shaking her head, the curls of her hair spilling over her shoulder, the beauty of her in the dress destroyed by the grief consuming her features, the hurt so visceral in her colorless eyes. "Every morning, I bring you a cup of coffee, just so I can see a smile on your face," she breathes, her eyes glittering now, spearing through him with every glance. "I spend practically every day with you, not because I need material for the book, not anymore. I'm more than your friend, more than a fling, and I just – you're a remarkable man, Castle. And I kinda fell in love with you," she confesses on a hollow breath of bitter laughter that cleaves his chest in two. "But it's not enough, it could never be enough for you."

His mouth is dry, useless for words, but he breathes past the stabbing sensation consuming his insides, scrapes her name past his lips. "Kate-"

But she's already backing away from him.

"Like I said, you were right," she rasps, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and averting her eyes to the door. "You're a cop, I'm just a silly novelist playing in your world. So let me put you out of your misery, Rick. This… partnership? Is over."

He's stunned into silence as she walks away from him, takes the shards of his heart right along with her, and every fiber of his being yearns to follow, but he remains rooted to the spot even once the door slams shut.


	14. Chapter 14

Kate slips out of the book party without a word to anyone, fortunately escapes without earning a single glance, breathing through her nose until she's striding down the sidewalk, the tears blurring her vision, building in her throat. She isn't far from her apartment, so she walks, her feet aching with every quick step in the too high heels she had chosen for tonight, shoes that had caused his eyes to gleam sapphire; he'd called her stunning, stared at her with awe that was so rare for Richard Castle, and cracked her brittle heart within the same hour.

But she'd brought it upon herself, hadn't she? From the very first day, she hadn't been able to just let him go, save them both some trouble and heartache, and this was her penance for her persistence.

Castle was a damaged man with a hardened heart and she was just… a broken thing, just as incapable of preserving a healthy relationship as he is. They never would have worked and she sees that now, sees her foolish hope for the blissful ignorance it was all along.

Even though she doesn't want to, even though it has her pressing her knuckles to her chest until they bruise just to keep the ragged sounds at bay.

Her skin has chilled in the cool night air, goosebumps rising along her flesh as raindrops begin to fall from the night sky, fat and splashing and foretelling of an incoming storm. Terribly cliché, but she welcomes it. All she can think about is going home, nursing the wounds they had inflicted upon each other in private while the rain beats against her windows and the lightning flashes through the darkened skies.

Kate approaches her building with relief rising up against the ache in her chest and she almost makes it into her apartment, almost makes it home, but the moment the elevator doors slide shut, the moment she's finally safe, finally alone, it all falls apart.

A sob tears through her chest cavity, breaking her open, ripping up through her to breach her lips in a terrible, gasping cry as she deflates against the side wall of the lift.

She loved him and it hurts, hurts to realize the tentative thing between them has been so easily broken, that it's over. Kate buries her face in her hands and pulls her knees into her chest, tries to crush her heart back into place; she loved him, she had told him, and he hadn't said a damn thing about it.

* * *

"Richard Castle."

His head snaps up and his lips part at the sight of his mother storming inside the private room, where he sits with his head in his hands on the lumpy couch, unsure where to go, what to do, what to think.

"Mother?"

"What on earth did you do?" Martha Rodgers demands, reprimand simmering harshly in her gaze, a fierce flashback to all the times he was in trouble as a child rippling through his mind. "All that poor girl did was try to help me and you send her out of here in tears-"

"What?" he rasps, clearing his throat as he stands from the sofa, but it's no good, his trachea is raw with it. "She was crying?"

His mother rolls her eyes, incredulous. "From what I saw. She ran out rather quickly-"

"She _left_?" he asks, prepared to move past his mother to scan the room himself, to go find her, because he has to. He has to find her-

But Martha stalls him with a hand to the middle of his chest and he stops short to stare down at her, to read the disappointment and sorrow swirling through the worn out blue of her gaze, the frown lines bracketing her downturned lips. It's been over ten years, but his mother looks so much older than he remembers, the vibrant youth to her features she had once maintained with such ease all gone.

He had broken her too, hadn't he? Hurt her just like he hurt Kate, like he hurts everyone who braves the battle of caring about him. Loving him.

Kate had said she'd fallen in love with him.

"Hate me all you like, but from what I've learned solely from speaking to Katherine, she's a rather divine young woman, and from what I've heard from others, she is the first thing to elicit any sort of happiness from you in years," his mother snaps, furious with him for the first time in… too long for him to even remember. "And regardless of what you think, what you've made yourself believe, you _deserve_ that, Richard. Alexis would never-"

"Don't you dare bring her into this," Castle growls, too tired to fight anymore, but unwilling to take this.

Apparently, neither is his mother.

"Hush, you are not the only one who lost her and I am done allowing you to wallow in your misery. Alexis wanted nothing more than for her father to be happy, it's all I've wanted as well, but you continuously destroy every chance you are allowed at it," Martha argues, her eyes so dull with heartache, the lines of her face so deep with exhaustion, and guilt adds an extra hole to his heart, bleeding him dry. "That's all Katherine wants for you as well, you know – for you to be happy. Perhaps, we both went about it the wrong way, but in short time of knowing her, the goal we share of your happiness has become clear to me. And I love you too much to watch you throw it all away, so you go chase after that girl and you apologize."

Castle does his best to suck in a breath, to force the air past the burning lump in his throat, and shifts forward to wrap his arms around his mother, feeling something slot back into place within his chest that's been gone for too long when she returns his embrace with the fierce band of her arms, the soothing pat of her hand to his back.

"Mother," he whispers, squeezing her tightly, his eyes beginning to sting. He's missed her, he really missed his mom.

"Shh, Richard," Martha murmurs, that same tone she'd always used when he was a boy, humming in his ear during the rare moments she had been around to comfort him, when he'd let her see just how much he needed it. "It's all right, darling."

"No," he gets out. "It's not, I'm-"

"How about this, kiddo?" his mother hums, pulling back to lift a hand to his face, cupping his cheek in her palm. "You go fix the mess I helped make with Katherine, get the girl, have a night of _magic_ ," she whispers with a flare of her free hand that has him choking on a piece of laughter. "And then you call me. We can set a day, do some catching up."

Rick nods, covers her hand on his cheek and squeezes.

"Now, go before it's too late. Katherine has my number."

He starts towards the door at the gentle shove of her hands and the encouraging wink she offers him, but pauses before he can leave, glancing back over his shoulder to the woman he had shunned for too many years, who probably could have eased the vicious ache he's lived with for so long. All because he hadn't wanted to hurt again, to lose another he loved and live with the agony of it.

But life alone had brought him an agony of its own and only now can he truly see that.

"Mother." Martha arches her brow in question. "I never hated you. I hated the man who killed Alexis, and then eventually, myself too."

"Richard-"

"But never you and I – I'm so sorry if I gave you that impression."

"Darling," she sighs, a smile cracking across her lips. "All is forgiven. I'll talk to you in the morning."

"I promise," he murmurs, quirking his lips before he finally slips from the room, intent on mending his relationship with his mother in the morning, and fixing what he had broken with Kate tonight.

* * *

Her phone buzzes from the nightstand while she towel dries her hair, soaked from the rain, and Kate sighs, expecting Jonathan's name to appear on her screen, a lecture awaiting her on the other line, but no, it's worse.

The photo she'd snagged of Castle when he wasn't looking on a night they had all gone out for drinks after a difficult case, laughing at something either Ryan or Esposito had said in the low light of the bar, is smiling back at her, and she drapes the towel over her shoulder to reach for the device.

Kate silences the call, debates turning it off altogether so she can wallow in peace, ride out the storm and tend to her stupid, mangled heart in solitude. She'll give herself a few days to mourn whatever it was they'd had, whatever hopes she had put into the potential for more; she'll pull herself together, inform Montgomery that she has all she needs for Derrick Storm, and resign from the illegitimate position of acting as Richard Castle's shadow.

And then she'll move on.

It won't be easy, but she's been through worse, knows how to pick up the pieces, and the sooner she starts healing, the better. For both of them.

Kate hangs the towel in the en suite, goes about changing into a pair of worn leggings and a large t-shirt that hangs from one shoulder, loose and comfortable. Her dress is drying in the laundry room, in need of a trip to the cleaners, but she's not sure if it's worth it. Not like she ever plans to wear it again.

Her phone dances on the nightstand once more, buzzing insistently, and she grits her teeth, debates flinging the thing across the room before she snatches it from the hardwood, silences the call and proceeds to power the device down.

Kate turns back for the bathroom with a deep breath, content with the quiet rage of the storm as her sole company for the night, but she's granted only a mere moment alone with it before a thundering series of knocks at her door has her cursing under her breath, turning on her heel.

* * *

He knocks too hard on her door, practically pounding on the wood, and doesn't have to wait long for it to swing open, Kate dressed down in leggings and a t-shirt on the other side, her hair damp and curling from the storm that must have caught her too. She looks so young like this, softer, and he yearns to touch, to cradle her body against his until she no longer possesses that wounded expression carved into her face.

Surprises skitters through the darkened ambers of her eyes, but it's quickly repressed by the steely wall of defense that rises before him, immediately shuts him out.

"What do you want, Castle?"

He had admitted to her once, on a set of swings in the bitter cold of winter after she had been following him for just over a month, that he had constructed a wall within his chest, barriers that protected him and kept others out, but so did she. Writing may have helped mend Kate's broken heart after her mother's murder, but it did not heal her completely. She's still damaged, they both are, and maybe that's how she managed to squeeze her way past his defenses so quickly.

For thirteen years, he hasn't allowed himself to love again. Not truly nor wholeheartedly, but for Kate Beckett... he could change that, he already has. She'd stolen his heart quite a long time ago, he thinks, took it whenever she first breached the wall, claimed it as hers before he could consider sharing it, and he doesn't want it back.

Only wants her.

"Did you come all this way just to insult me some more?" she demands when he fails to speak, standing in her doorway soaking wet, creating an impressive puddle on the wooden floor of her entryway.

"No," he murmurs, his throat dry, voice husking over the word. "I just wanted… I came for you. Just you."

Her eyebrows knit in confusion, but he doesn't give her time to think or turn him away. He does as he had said, he comes for her.

Kate manages an unsteady step back, but his hands cup her face, palms cushioning the sharp lines of her jaw, and holds her steady as he kisses her, catching the tiny gasp that rushes from her mouth, swallows it down as her lips automatically part to kiss him back. But her reciprocation lasts for only a moment before she's grabbing his wrists and jerking away.

"What are you doing?" she whispers, their hands suspended between them, her eyes wide and searching his face like she just can't understand, and he hates himself a little more for that, for causing her so much uncertainty from the very first day they'd met, since the first night he spent in her bed and left her to wake alone.

"I'm sorry, for everything I said. I was - I care about you, Kate, and it terrifies me," he confesses, watching with a hammering heart as her hands abandon his wrists, fall to her sides while he fights with the urge to reclaim them. "But you... you're the best thing that's happened to me in so long."

Her eyes have gradually began to soften, flecks of gold rising from beneath the pools of hazel, but she still holds herself away from him, assesses him with a healthy dose of distrust.

"You're more than a partner," he adds, risking a step closer, draping a hand to the side of her throat, his thumb stretching outwards to stroke along the taut skin just below her jaw, caressing the throb of her pulse when she doesn't shrug him off. "And I'm - so tired of trying to deny that, trying to go slow."

Her gaze flickers to his mouth, back again, and then one of her hands is lifting, coasting along his jaw, fingers curling at the hinge of bone and drawing him in until their noses are nearly brushing, his forehead a breath away from grazing hers.

"I love you, Kate," he breathes, the words falling from his lips like a weight being lifted from his chest, the truth finally allowed free. "All I want is you."

Her other hand rises, tentative but joining in cradling his face, tracing the contours of his rain dampened cheeks before skating down to his neck and tugging him closer, eradicating the final vestiges of space left between them. Kate tilts her chin, the heat of her breath searing his chilled flesh, but he doesn't break the hold of her eyes, waits patiently, as she always has for him.

"Prove it," she murmurs against his lips.

It's all he needs.

Castle bends to take her mouth, nothing about it gentle or tender, not this time, and she lets him, lets him taste her bottom lip with his tongue, graze the soft flesh with his teeth, and bury his fingers in the waves of her hair when she arches on her toes for more.

Within seconds, he ends up pinned against the door with her body in his arms, his back slamming it shut in time with the crackle of thunder and the brilliant flash of light through her loft. But he hardly feels the rush of motion, doesn't hear the click of the lock or the call of the storm, only able to focus on the twine of Kate's arms around his neck, fingers in his hair, and the fit of her hips between his.

She gasps when he spins them, her spine instantly snapping forward at the press of his body into hers, crowding her against the hard surface of the door at her back, abandoning her mouth to nip along her jaw, stray to her throat, feel the rhythm of her pulse beneath his tongue.

"Rick," she breathes, her fingers fisting in the collar of his jacket, shoving it from his arms, and he reluctantly releases his grip on her waist to shake the material from his frame, allowing Kate to continue in tugging the shirt from his pants, stealing her hands beneath the fabric.

His hips surge at the cool touch of her fingers to the naked skin of his back, the pierce of her nails that he'd missed, and bows his head to seek her lips like a prayer once more, slipping his tongue inside the sanctuary of her mouth and tasting the forgiveness on her tongue as it strokes against his, the arduous need.

Her hands tangle in the front of his shirt, fingers fighting with buttons until the fabric parts for her, while his trail down her sides, curl at her outer thighs, and Kate nods, holds to his shoulders as he lifts her.

"God, I missed this," she whispers with her legs around his waist, her hands cradling his face again and her nose nudging his cheek. Her hips rock into the waiting embrace of his, sparks of friction simmering, and Castle tries to breathe, refuses to have her against the door. Not the first time.

He kisses the corner of her mouth and skims his hands up her spine, beneath her t-shirt and along the rungs of her ribs. Her body is curled around him, secure enough that he doesn't worry about losing his grip on her as he steps back from the door and takes the path he never forgot to her bedroom, carrying her down the short hallway and through the entryway, her room alight with only the glow from the lamp on the nightstand and the flashes of lightning outside her window.

He reaches the edge of the bed with his knees as the thunder rumbles, eases Kate onto the mattress before following her descent, holding himself above her until she urges him to follow. There's a faint sense of déjà vu in the moment, memories of his last time in her bed, tangled in her body and her sheets, but this is different. She isn't just his favorite author and the woman he'd sparked an immediate connection with, she's… she's more now, so much more. She's everything.

Kate hooks her fingers in his belt and he lets her work the leather free, smirks when her fingers falter at the button of his dress pants as he dusts his lips down to her chin, along the column of her throat.

"I missed this too," he breathes into her skin, dipping his tongue into the hollow convergence of bone between her clavicles, nudging her shirt out of his way. "I'm sorry I-"

"There's nothing left to apologize for," she murmurs, combing her fingers through his hair, staring up at him with eyes that shimmer with lust when he lifts his head, but sparkle with golden traces of affection too, reflections of the words he'd spoken to her at the door. "Not tonight, Castle."

His shirt still hangs undone at his sides, all of her clothes still on, but her toes are curling in the fabric of his pants, shoving the now loose waistband past his hips, and he chuckles, paints his laughter along the grin of her mouth.

"Tonight's going to be different," he promises, hopes she knows what he means, what he's saying. "Better."

Kate hums, stroking her fingers through the hair at his nape, her lashes fluttering against his cheek, calming and maddening all at once, but then she's securing a well-toned leg at his thigh in a move he recognizes all too late. Though, he doesn't think he would have fought her on this even if he'd seen it coming, appreciating the straddle of her body over his, the amusement in her gaze as she smirks down at him.

"Show me."

* * *

 **A/N: Chapter fifteen will be rated M, but the T rating will be back for chapter sixteen.**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Reminder that this chapter is rated M.**

* * *

Kate draws her own shirt over her head, gives him the chance to do the same, and quickly disposes of her leggings as well, slipping them off one leg at a time, gasping before the fabric can fall when Castle spans her bare waist with his palms and sits up with her in his lap, touches his mouth to the middle of her chest.

She hadn't been wearing a bra and he takes advantage of the lack of barriers, trails his lips down the swell of her breast until the heat of his mouth is setting her aflame, jerking her spine to the play of his tongue.

"Fuck, Castle," she moans, too close to a whimper for her liking, but he knows just how to touch, what she likes, as if he had memorized it all from that single night so long ago.

"Soon," he mumbles, nuzzling his cheek, scraping her sensitized flesh with his stubble, before his mouth migrates across her sternum and his teeth drag along her skin before he's taking the tip of her opposite breast in his mouth, swirling his tongue around her nipple.

She grinds in his lap, mewling when his teeth nip at her flesh in retaliation, and curls around him, her body a cove. His skin is still wet from the rain of the storm sweeping through the city, still rioting outside and drowning out everything but the drumming beat of her heart in her ears and the harsh rhythm of his breathing.

The taut plain of his abdomen is cool as it brushes against hers, has them both gasping at the intimate whisper of flesh. His stuttered exhale spills out against her chest and she can't help the tilt of her neck as he travels upwards, back to the column of her throat, the allowance of access to the sensitive skin just below her jaw.

"I want you so badly," she confesses on a broken exhale, the truth of it evident in the fire of her flesh and the intensifying ache between her legs. Kate drops her head forward to collide with his, resting there as her hands canvass the contours of his chest, trickling down to hook in the waistband of his boxers and dragging the material past his hips. "Don't make me wait anymore."

He aids her in disposing of his underwear, hers already gone with her leggings, nothing left to hide the stain of her arousal, nothing left to stop her from coiling her fingers around the throbbing length of him, the scalding proof that he wanted her back just as fiercely.

"Kate," he groans at the gentle squeeze of her palm, the caress of her fingers, his own bruising as they clutch her hips. His eyes squeeze shut in concentration, a look she's witnessed before on difficult days at the precinct, one she's never had the chance to see, to study, in the bedroom.

So consumed by her, truly in this.

She leans forward to dust her lips to the crease between his brow, just before she rises on her knees and sinks down onto him.

* * *

It's better than he remembered, her body so tight around him, so hot and all encompassing, sliding inside her like coming home.

She whimpers against his cheek as space becomes a nonexistent thing between them, her eyes fluttering shut and lashes tangling with his, the furrow of her brow tickling his skin. Castle grips her thighs, does his best to calm the pound of his heart thrashing in his chest, the white-hot wave of arousal flushing through his system at the clutch of her around him.

He restrains himself from thrusting into the haven of her body above him, allowing her the chance to adjust, to settle in his lap once more and for the shallow rhythm of her breathing to slow. But with every rise and fall of her chest, the taut peaks of her breasts brush his chest, points of contact like frissons of electricity with every touch, and he won't make it for much longer, can't stay still.

"You feel so good," she rasps, biting down on her bottom lip, a habit that has never failed to elicit the urge to steal the abused flesh from her mouth, take it into his own, and finally, he allows himself to act on it.

Kate moans, her arms lacing around his neck as her hips rock sharply, has them both gasping, but his body responds to the pierce of pleasure with a thrust of his own, finding a rhythm with her so easily - it's like they never gave this up, never stopped.

Her arms unwind from his neck, feather down his sides while his hands span her waist, explore the plains of her back, the gentle curves and hard lines of bones, stuttering when her palms plant against his sternum, urge him to lie back. And the sight of Kate Beckett sitting astride his hips, taking control and riding him, is too much, nearly enough to make him come undone.

* * *

She isn't prepared when Castle curls his hand up around her back, firm and strong as his muscles flex beneath her, and rolls them over, his body hovering above hers. She cries out as he nearly withdraws entirely from her before plunging back in, burying himself deep, hitting all the right places with ease, and Kate twines her legs high around his waist, drags his body down further with the score of her nails digging into his back.

"Don't – _oh_ , please don't stop," she breathes, curving one of her hands at his nape, stealing a kiss from his mouth before it coasts along her jaw. "Never stop. Not-"

"You never stop talking, do you?" he murmurs, his lips quirking against her cheek, and who was this man, who touched her body with desperation but laughed at her heated babbling in bed?

Kate hums, twists her hips in the same moment he thrusts, just to feel the air leave his lungs, the retaliating snap of his pelvis that shoots a fresh dose of arousal through her veins, shuddering through her bones. She'd known they wouldn't last long, not for the first round, not when they've both resisted the inevitable pull of attraction for too many months now, and she can feel the sparks of pleasure intensifying, crackling through every inch of her body, coming together to blanket her in the razor's edge of release.

"Castle," she gasps, tightening her legs around him, drawing him in impossibly deeper with every rock of his body, and turning her face into his neck. "With me. Please, _Rick_ -"

The walls of her inner muscles clench hard, a channel that narrows around him, drags the ragged noise of her name from his mouth, and she comes with an arc of her spine, the orgasm rippling through her. Shimmers of light glisten through her vision, a rush of visceral heat searing through her insides, beautiful and breath stealing sensations that have her clinging to him, thoughtlessly rocking her hips into the cradle of his as he spills inside her, until they're both drifting and boneless and the weight of him is the only thing to anchor her.

When her mind begins to clear, the haze of bliss receding, she recognizes the skim of his mouth at her neck, the stroke of his thumb at her temple, and Kate turns her head, lips already parted and waiting for the soft touch of his, the seal of a kiss.

"I think - that was better the second time," she hums, her chest still trembling with every rise and fall, dusting her fingers over the marks her nails had left across the wings of his shoulder blades. "Better than I remembered."

"Mm, definitely." Castle shifts above her, kissing her shoulder as he withdraws from her body, already cool and whimpering at the loss, the foreign reaction of wanting him to remain, to stay pressed so impossibly close against her.

Before him, Kate hadn't been one for post coital cuddles, pillow talk or lingering in the sheets. If she fell asleep before her temporary partner had left her bed, she expected him to be gone by daybreak, or at least well on his way before the awkwardness of a morning after could set in.

Rick Castle had been the first to ever disappoint her with his premature disappearance from her bed after a night of sex. But it didn't appear that that was going to happen again.

He eases onto his side next to her, tugging her sated body along with him, and she follows the guide of his hand drawing up her spine without resistance, sighing as he arranges her how he wants – his head on her pillow, arm draped at her waist, her knee between both of his.

The rain is still pattering against her windows, the thunder gentled and the lightning no longer so luminescent, but the elements still paint across the glass, slip through the curtains of her bedroom to dapple along his skin in shadows, illuminate the tranquil blues of his eyes staring back at her with everything exposed for her to see. She hooks her thigh at his hip just to be closer, to slot her body into place with his, and touches her fingers to his chin, follows the line of his jaw upwards, savors this raw moment in her bed with him.

"I think I love you back, Castle," she murmurs, tracing the curve of his mouth with her thumb, the deep lines that bracket his lips.

"Think?" he echoes, flexing his fingers at her tailbone.

"Mm, you're more than welcome to try and solidify it into an _I know_ ," she challenges, grinning as his hand drifts lower, his palm cupping the curve of her ass, hauling her body in flush against him until the bones of their hips meet in a kiss and she can feel the stir of his reaction against her thigh.

"I'll have you loving me with certainty before the night's over, Kate Beckett."

And she has no doubts that he will, has no intention to stop him from sealing the reassurance to her skin, to tell him that she already does.


	16. Chapter 16

The scent of coffee wafting through the air wakes her like clockwork, the rays of sunlight creeping into her room, across the empty sheets of her bed, coaxing her further into wakefulness. Kate peels her eyes open, extends her hand to stretch across the space where he should be, feeling the warmth of him still lingering in her bed.

She isn't jumping to conclusions, not yet, but her heart does stutter with disappointment to wake without him there, left to wonder if he's still here at all.

"Damn, I was hoping I'd make it in time."

Her gaze flutters to the doorway, to the man in nothing but the boxers she had tugged from his hips and flung across the room last night, approaching her with two cups of coffee and a gentle smile on his lips, sunlight glimmering in his eyes.

"Morning, Kate."

She buries her face in her pillow to hide the ridiculous grin claiming her lips, provoked by the stupid butterflies overtaking her insides and making her feel like a giddy little girl for the first time in decades.

He stayed.

The bed dips, the sound of ceramic touching the surface of the nightstand clinking through the otherwise quiet apartment, and Kate shifts to look up at him just as Castle leans over her, presses a kiss to her mouth.

"Morning," she hums, palming the back of his neck before he can sit up, dragging her along with him.

"Surprised?" Castle inquires, quirking his brow while he reaches for their coffees, handing hers over first even as the sheet falls to reveal her body, still bare from the night before, and tearing his gaze from her chest to retrieve his own.

"Mm, pleased," she corrects, cradling the mug in her hands.

"I meant everything I said last night," he states, glancing back, staring solely at her face. "I'm sorry for how I treated you yesterday, Kate. For blowing up at you at the party, for hurting you."

She shakes her head, sighs into her cup. "I should have told you about your mom."

"Maybe, but you were right. I would have made a run for it," he confesses, bringing his coffee to his lips and taking a slow sip. "I'm glad you invited her. We talked after you and I – after our fight and I'm going to call her later, set up a date for us to meet and catch up."

Her heart swells, the smile climbing across her lips, and she reaches across to squeeze his knee. "Then I'm glad, too. You both deserve that chance. But you need to know… I would never do something to intentionally hurt you like that, Rick. I thought – I just wanted to help. I'm sorry, though, even if it worked out, that I overstepped."

He nods, covers her hand and lifts it to his mouth, his coffee warmed lips. "In the meantime, I do have the day off."

"Ah, that's right," she murmurs, the grin curling at her lips, delight coiling through her stomach. "Did you still want to have that movie marathon?"

"Tonight," he agrees, lowering her hand back to the bed, but extending his arm to splay his palm at the cage of her ribs, hooking his thumb in the pool of sheets at her waist. "Which leaves us with an entire day to just… do whatever we want."

Kate hums, toys with the muse of contemplation while his fingers strum her ribs, caress her skin with lazy strokes that slowly set her aflame, spread languid, liquid fire through her veins. "Well, we could read, get-" Her sentence stalls as his thumb traces along the underside of her breast. "Get something to eat, go - out for a while."

"All good ideas," he murmurs, a smirk curling at the corners of his mouth as his eyes sweep along her lips.

"Or stay here," she adds, taking a final sip of her coffee, the mug still half full, but there were far more important matters at hand that couldn't wait. "Stay in bed all day."

"At least for the next hour," he concedes, his cup joining hers on the nightstand, his other hand ascending to her jaw as he rises from the bed, follows the guide of her hand snagging in his boxers and pulling.

"We're _good_ at this, Castle," she mumbles, grinning into his mouth when he leans in to kiss her, a feather of lips and a glimpse of his teeth against hers as he smiles, lets her drag him down with her.

"Inspire you, Beckett?"

Kate arches beneath him, just to see the flash of want in his eyes, feel the simmering need beneath his skin. "You have no idea."

* * *

Castle sighs as his phone begins to buzz, still tucked into his jacket that'd been left in the front entryway overnight, but loud enough to be heard from her dining room table.

"Thought you were off today," she murmurs around a bite of toast, her body draped in his shirt and nothing else sitting in the chair across from him, one of her bare legs stretched beneath the table to rest alongside his thigh.

He's never been the type to crave touch, to incessantly pet or caress, certainly has never welcomed it either, but with Kate… it had been bad before, but now, since he had touched and explored her body so thoroughly last night, this morning, the yearning to constantly have her skin beneath his hands has yet to recede.

"I am. Not sure who's calling or why," he mutters, squeezing her ankle before slipping from his seat, crossing through the living room to snag his jacket from the floor, fish his phone from the pocket. "Huh. It's Montgomery."

"Call him back. Call your mom too," she quips and he huffs in response, rolls his eyes when he finds her watching in amusement.

"Just because we're sleeping together does not mean you suddenly get to boss me around."

"Suddenly? Oh, Detective, where have you been?" she chuckles, sinking her teeth into another piece of her bread.

His phone starts humming again in his palm before he can reply and Castle swipes his thumb across the screen, lifts the device to his ear.

"Captain, is everything-"

"Castle," Montgomery states, his voice firm, like always, but somewhat… strained in a way Rick has never heard, as if relieved Castle had finally picked up, but still troubled by something. "Where have you been?"

"I – I'm sorry, sir. But it's my day off and I apologize for neglecting my phone, but I had a bit of a busy morning," he explains, trying not to cut his eyes to Kate, can already feel her smirking from across the room anyway.

Montgomery sighs, the exhale long and steadying. "You're right, it's your day off, but Castle, I need you to listen to me."

"Okay," Rick murmurs, his brow furrowing, but that same sense of unease from the night before, from the strange conversation he'd had with Montgomery about Beckett and her mom's case at the book party, is invading his system again.

"Have you spoken to Beckett since last night?" his captain asks and Castle instinctually swallows.

"I have."

"You're with her right now, aren't you?" Castle's mouth falls open. "I was a detective once too, son. But it doesn't matter, the reason I'm calling and asking about Kate is – there are things about her mother's case that she doesn't know, that no one knows, and she can't… I know what you've been doing with that case, Rick."

His blood runs cold, leaching the color from his face, and he can hear Kate rising from the table like the panic that rises in his chest. "Roy-"

"Running down old leads, revisiting Johanna Beckett's crime scene, digging into something that you have no idea the consequences of," Montgomery states, but it isn't anger in his voice, it's dread, weariness, and somehow, that's worse. "Any other case, I wouldn't come down on you for it, would let you dig as deep as you want, but this one? This is a Pandora's box, Castle. And I'm not the only one who's aware that you opened it."

"What does that mean?" Castle murmurs, fisting a hand at his side to calm the flurry of nerves through his veins, the knot of anxiety his intestines are tangling into.

"This case is so much bigger than you realize."

The touch of her hand on his arm has him jerking, catching her by the elbow when he nearly knocks them both off balance.

"But this – it was always inevitable and I knew it, accepted it, and now I have to live with it."

"Live with it?" Castle echoes, the resignation in Montgomery's voice striking genuine fear like ice water to his guts.

"Just - I need you and Kate to meet me tonight. I'll text you the address."

The line goes abruptly dead.

"Castle," she murmurs as he lowers the phone from his ear, stares down at the blank screen, the ended call. "Rick, what's wrong?"

"I'm not sure yet," he answers honestly, but he has an inkling. A terrible, dreadful idea, and if he's right, then Kate needs to be prepared. She needs to know the truth. "But we – we need to go to my place. There's something I have to show you."

* * *

He's scaring her.

They ride the subway to his apartment together, her fingers laced through his and his body a warm reassurance at her side, but something is so obviously wrong, something from that call with Montgomery rattling him so deeply that his skin was still pale, his spine still stiff, eyes still dark and terrified.

She barely has the time to study the building she's never been to once they arrive after the brief ride, following him through the dim lobby and climbing the steps rather than taking what he warns is a highly unreliable elevator. She has no time to roam her eyes over the space of his home when they enter the quaint, one bedroom apartment with his hand still tugging her along, just trying to keep up.

"Castle, please," she sighs, allowing him to lead her through the small living room area to a cramped office with a desk that takes up the majority of the space, a window at the back that allows the light of the sun to bleed in, and a projector screen drawn down against the wall that he releases her hand to grab the remote for. "What's going on?"

He finally pauses, his chest expanding with a deep breath, and raises his troubled blue eyes to hers.

"There's something I have to show you," he confesses, scraping a hand through his hair. "And I know you're going to… you may hate me for it."

Now he's _really_ scaring her.

"I thought I was doing the right thing, but I don't – I'm not so sure anymore."

The screen flickers to life at the press of his thumb to the power button, taking a moment to resolve the digital page of notes and images strewn across it.

"This looks like the murder boards at the precinct, the ones I use for my stories sometimes too," she states, stepping in closer to examine what case he's working on. "I didn't even know you had one of…"

Her sentence trails as she finally comprehends the pictures on the screen, the familiar notes from a case file she knows better than the back of her hand for a near decade now, all of the information on her mother's murder on some kind of sick display before her.

"You – I told you no," she whispers, the horror blooming through her chest, twining around her heart like thorns, constricting around the muscle, piercing into it until she begins to bleed from the inside.

"Kate-"

She jerks from the graze of his fingers at her arm, cuts her eyes to the ground to avoid looking at him, to contain the whirlwind of emotions brewing in her veins, swirling through her blood.

"How could you – you accused me of using the one thing I knew would hurt you by going against your wishes regarding your mom, all while you were doing the same thing to me?" she rasps, clutching at her chest, pressing down hard with her knuckles to smother the physical ache that comes with every throb of her heart.

"No, Kate, it's - different, it was never-"

"I thought you understood," she breathes, turning her back on him, striding out of the room, but he's right on her heels, catching her by the wrist.

"I did, I do," he insists, releasing her when she spins on her heel and tears her arm from his grasp, so forlorn and beseeching, so different than what she's used to. It doesn't ease the pain. "But I saw how much this still eats at you-"

"I was living with it," she argues on a growl, stepping forward until she stands toe to toe with him. "I'd become so much better about-"

"I saw your own murder board that first night, saw your face a few weeks ago, during the case with the woman whose murder, whose crime scene, was damn near exact to your mom's," he snaps, the image of the dead woman in the alley, bloodied and slaughtered, flashing through her mind, tapping into the dormant beast of grief living in her chest that has been a permanent resident for the last ten years. "I saw how it broke you and all I wanted was to help, find the justice you deserve."

"I never asked you to," she hisses, poking her finger hard into the middle of his chest. "Have you ever even considered how I'd feel about any of this after I fucking _told_ you what her case did to me?" she demands, the words scraping at her throat, her heart, leaving her so brutally raw. "Did you ever think even for a second that I didn't want to know? That the thought of catching my mom's murderer and then having to sit there and watch as he cuts some deal that puts him back out on the street in ten years makes me nauseous?"

His eyes flood with remorse, but it isn't enough this time.

"Didn't think so."

She turns to go, to leave him here with the remains of her personal tragedy, to sort through the bones and rotting remains of it alone, but the man who has been a pro at shutting her out for the last seven months suddenly can't seem to let her go.

"I'm sorry," he calls after her before she's even taken a full step, his voice broken in a way she'd never heard before, uneven and snagging harshly as he speaks her name. "Kate, I swear I wasn't trying to hurt you. I thought… I'd hoped that I would find something the other detectives wouldn't, that I would be able to solve this case, give you what you've always wanted."

Kate shakes her head, scrapes a hand through the waves of her hair, tries to breathe past the anger, the sharp stab of betrayal that had pierced through her sternum the second she'd made sense of the murder board.

"Before, maybe even just a year or two ago, I would have agreed with you. That the closure and the justice are all I wanted," she concedes, all of the fight slowly seeping out of her, leaving the battered parts of her hollowed and aching once more. "I won't lie and say I _don't_ want that, but Castle," she sighs, shifting to face him once more, to sweep her gaze over the man who loves her, had loved her with such beautiful intensity mere hours ago, who could break her heart just as easily. And that may be what scares her the most, just how badly they could rip each other to shreds, how in the last 24 hours, in an effort to help, they had both earned a new scar by the other's hand. "I have my writing, I have my time at the precinct, I have you – and right now? That's enough for me."

He sucks in a breath, nods his understanding, resolution catching fire in his eyes. "How do I make this better?"

Kate shakes her head and bands her arms around her stomach, applying pressure in hopes of soothing the knots intertwined there, and directs her eyes to the toes of her boots on his floor.

"I don't know," she admits, biting her bottom lip to ensure it won't treacherously begin to tremble. She doesn't want to hold onto the hurt, to allow it to drive a wedge between them, but she also doesn't want him to think he can do things like this, make decisions for her.

He may be the cop, but she's just as capable of handling herself.

"I asked you _not_ to look into her case, I explained to you in detail why, and you still went behind my back because you decided what was best for me as if I was a child. How am I supposed to trust you? How can - how are we ever going to trust each other?"

Rick purses his lips, his brow creasing with contemplation, before his gaze lifts, solemn and sincere, ashamed and apologetic, but she decides in that moment that she doesn't want to hear whatever it is he plans to say. That it won't matter, not when her heart is a bloodied thing leaking through her chest and staining her in red.

"I need to go," she mumbles, scraping a hand through her hair and glancing towards the door, knowing he won't try to stop her.

He isn't the kind of man to chase after someone, even after last night.

"Kate," he sighs, but he doesn't reach for her this time, and she purses her lips, turns away from him. "Is it irreparable? Us?"

She closes her eyes, but keeps her back to him, releases a steadying breath through her nose.

"No. I just – need some space," she answers, training her eyes on her new objective on the door, never expecting to be the one walking away from him. "Some time."

"How much time?"

Kate bites her bottom lip, rolls it between her teeth until it stings. "I'll call you."

She starts for the front door before he can respond, curling her fingers around the handle and pushing it open-

"I can wait," he calls after her, quiet and uncertain in a way she isn't used to, a vow and a promise wrapped into one.

She nods once and keeps going until the door clicks shut behind her, closes on him.


	17. Chapter 17

Montgomery's text arrives hours after Kate had left his apartment, an address appearing on his screen, nothing more. When he informs his captain that he'll be coming alone, he receives no reply, and it isn't until he's driving his cruiser into the back parking lot of an airplane hangar that he finds her there, waiting alone along the sidelines.

It's a stark change from this morning with her skin so pale in the darkness of the fallen night, her black turtleneck camouflaging her into the eerie setting of the shadows.

"Beckett?" Castle murmurs as he approaches, earning the startled jerk of her head. "What are you doing here?"

She shifts, awkwardly in front of him, and he hates it. Hates that they went from lounging in her bed to standing on opposite sides of a chasm he had inadvertently caused to bloom between them.

"Roy texted me an hour ago, told me to meet him at this address and that it was urgent," she explains, crossing her arms over her chest as Castle comes to a stop before her, her eyes flickering towards the mouth of the building. "But I haven't seen him since I got here a few minutes ago. Why are you here?"

"The call this morning, during breakfast," he murmurs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "He said the same thing to me, that it was urgent and then sent the address with the time to meet a couple of hours ago."

"The call that freaked you out?"

"He was panicked, paranoid," Castle recalls, unease rippling up and down his spine. "I've never heard him like that before. And he was talking about your mother's case, that's why… that's why I needed to show you what I'd done."

Beckett stiffens at the mention of the case, her fingers tightening around her biceps. "He knew you were looking into it?"

"He found out," Castle corrects. "He said that the case was bigger than I realized, that I'd opened Pandora's Box."

Her brow creases with confusion, dread filling her eyes like black holes, and he moves to stride past her, determined to know what the hell is going on.

" _Castle_ ," she hisses, turning on her heel to catch up with him and snagging him by the arm. "We don't know what we're up against."

"Well, we can't just wait to find out," he mutters back and she huffs at him, that annoyed purse of her lips forming as she walks alongside him towards the entry of the airplane hangar, dusting her fingers along the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans in warning, snug against the small of his back.

"Something's not right," Kate murmurs at his side, her eyes scanning the empty hangar, the glow of blue beams from the two lights illuminating the parking lot casting a sickly green across her cheek.

"I agree," he mumbles, withdrawing his gun as the hairs on the back of his neck rise to attention. "I think we're being set up."

"But why?" she whispers, pausing with him at the gaping mouth of the entrance, the quiet deafening. "Montgomery has no reason to-"

"Not a set up."

They both startle, Castle jerking Beckett behind him with one arm, aiming his gun at the man emerging from a darkened office across the space of steel and aircrafts with the other. His captain, who raises his hands in supplication, but his superior has a weapon of his own, a gun in his grasp, and Rick refuses to lower his.

"I have no plans to hurt you nor Beckett, Castle," Montgomery states calmly, but his gaze flickers towards the road, nerves alight in Roy's dark eyes, the tension visible throughout every inch of his body.

"Who does?" Castle questions, squeezing Kate's hip when she begins to ease from his back, dislodging his wrist to stand at his side instead, stubborn and doing nothing for his mounting anxiety.

"Castle," she mumbles, her fist bumping his thigh, and reluctantly, he draws his gun back to his side.

"What's going on, Roy?" he demands, his gut twisting into unbearable knots, because not only was something already horribly wrong, but something even worse was about to happen. Not only could he see it in his captain's eyes, he could feel it in the air like an impending wave of doom about to sweep over them all.

"I told you, consequences," Montgomery sighs, flexing his grip on his service piece. "But they don't all fall on you, Castle. Looking into Johanna Beckett's case again… it set into motion a fall of dominoes I lined up a long time ago."

Kate steps forward before Castle can stop her.

"What are you talking about?"

Shame washes over Montgomery's face, quick and devastating, and the older man shakes his head. "Kate-"

"You're a part of it?" she whispers, the fist of her hand beginning to tremble. "What… what did you do? You didn't - did you kill her?"

"No," Montgomery answers without hesitation and a small piece of dread in Castle's chest eases. "But she died because of what we did, something I was involved in, and – God forgive me that is my greatest sin."

"Tell me who," she demands, a raw quality to her voice he doesn't think he's ever heard, a broken sound she's never allowed him to learn. "Tell me why."

"No, there's no time," he murmurs, the flash of approaching headlights snagging Castle's gaze, Montgomery's too, and now he understands what this is. "This isn't a set up. Not for you."

Castle covers the few feet of space Beckett has crossed, stands at her back but keeps his eyes on Montgomery, the man who had become his mentor, the closest thing to a father he'd ever had, a martyr. "You baited them?"

"Yes, that's why I called you. They want Beckett dead, to tie up a final loose end, and you as well for digging around," Montgomery explains in a hushed, hurried tone. "But I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to end this."

"Captain-"

"I couldn't save her mother, but I won't stand by and watch the same happen to her," he says, nodding to Beckett, who is evading the touch of Castle's hand at her shoulder, staring at Montgomery with beseeching eyes and a determination he knows too well. "Or to you. Go, Castle."

"No, Roy, we can fight them off together. We can-"

"No!" His shout echoes through the hangar, firmness and finality that resonate after so many years, cleaves through his heart. Because he's so damn sick of losing people. "This is my fight. This… this is where I stand, Rick."

Montgomery offers him the ghost of a smile, a conversation amidst a tough case that felt like ages ago, an offhanded comment from his captain that had always remained cemented in his brain.

 _There are no victories, there's only the battle. And the best you can hope for is that you find some place where you can make your stand._

It hadn't made much sense to him then, not like it does now.

The twin beams of an SUV grow brighter, speeding up, and Montgomery looks to them with urgency.

"Now, they're coming. You have to go."

"I can stand with you," Castle tries, has to try, one last time, but he know it's pointless, that he can't stay and fight this battle with Montgomery, a battle that he may have sparked yet doesn't belong to, can't protect Kate at the same time.

Montgomery knows it too.

"Rick. Go."

"No," Kate snaps, turning her head to catch Castle's eyes over her shoulder. "Give me a gun. The extra piece strapped to your ankle."

"No," he growls, his hand tightening around her elbow, fingers branching out to curl at the crease when he feels the resistance building through her bones. "Kate-"

He tugs and she jerks her arm, looking at him with so much horror in her eyes, a reflection of his own. "No, no, Castle, they're going to _kill_ him-"

"Castle, get her out of here!" Montgomery insists. "Both of you!"

Rick doesn't think, doesn't risk another glance at his captain, at the certain death approaching, and reaches for Kate.

"No, Castle!" she groans, struggling against the band of his arms around her as he lifts her off the ground, her heel connecting with his shin, her fist beating against his forearm, but he hustles with her towards the back door, pushes through with his shoulder.

She starts to cry once they're outside, sagging in his grasp and gripping the arms around her ribs, soft sobbing sounds that are so devastated, so defeated – it's enough to rip his heart from the last few strings it had been holding on by.

"Shh, love," he whispers, his lips at the shell of his ear as they reach his cruiser, easing her feet to the concrete, but her legs bend and fold, collapse beneath her and they both crumple to the ground in a hopeless tangle of limbs.

He's too afraid to let her go, to risk allowing her the chance to bolt from his arms and run to the hangar, willing to face down a squad of murderers for the truth behind her mother's death, for the name of the man, who Castle had recently learned throughout his secret investigation, had ordered for Dick Coonan to kill her mother.

But Kate shifts in his arms, huddles close against his shuddering chest, tight with sobs he doesn't want to release, and presses her face to his neck, stains his cold flesh with the ragged heat of her breath.

"Why did he do this?" she chokes out, her fingers clenching in the sides of his shirt. "He was - I trusted him."

"I did too," he breathes, cupping the side of her face, senselessly wiping away tears only to make way for more, burying his own in her hair. "I did too."

"It's never going to end," she rasps, her shoulders beginning to tremble, and he curls in tighter around her, shushes her cries before they can grow, before anyone can hear, tries his best to comfort her just like he used to soothe Alexis after a nightmare.

How he wishes this was just a nightmare.

Gunshots echo and Kate jerks, but doesn't rise, shifting to wrap her arms around his neck, hold onto him just as tightly. She's the only thing left to hold him together.


	18. Chapter 18

They meet with Ryan and Esposito at his apartment, the four of them huddled in his living room, spilling truths and piecing together Captain Montgomery's lies, making no progress in the case, but vowing to ensure their captain is remembered as a hero, not the rookie who got involved with the wrong crowd.

Ryan hugs him before he and Espo leave when daylight is bleeding through the night sky outside his windows, and he's surprised to notice Esposito hooking an arm around Beckett's shoulders at his door, not murmuring comforting words or promises, but offering an embrace of strength that Castle can no longer offer.

"I'll drive you home," he murmurs once they're alone again, his apartment too quiet, too heavy with grief and the weight of too many betrayals wedged between them.

She's still standing by the door, her hands helplessly at her sides and her eyes on the floor, rising at his words.

"I don't want to go home." Her voice scrapes along her throat, so rough she has to clear it with a great deal of effort. "I'm staying here."

"Kate-"

"I'm still mad at you," she states, drifting deeper into his apartment, into his living room until she's only a few steps away from him. "But we both just lost someone we loved and I-"

"I don't want you to stay just because of that. We both handle grief better in private anyway," he mutters, but Kate shakes her head.

"That's the problem. I'm… tired of doing it alone. I'm tired of being stuck at arm's length with you and dealing with everything on my own since I was 19," she confesses, so weary, every line embedded into her features filled with exhaustion. "I don't want to stay to console you. I want to stay because we've both lost so much and I can't lose you too."

He resists the urge for only a moment before he closes the gap of distance between them then, wrapping his arms around her body and exhaling in relief, his chest shuddering harshly against hers, as she hugs him back just as tightly.

"I'm so sorry," he rasps, his voice thick with guilt, with fresh grief. "Hurting you and getting Montgomery killed-"

"Castle," she chokes out, pulling back to trap his face between her hands even as he tries to turn away, hide all of the emotion suddenly pouring out of him unwelcome and unbidden. "That was not your fault. Not your fault. He made those choices and he knew, he knew this was inevitable."

"I reopened the case, I put it all in motion," he growls, trying to get ahold of himself, make it stop. "If it weren't for me-"

"Then it would have happened some other way," she insists, her fingers curling at his ears and drawing him in closer. "You were right about me, Rick. I'm living with it now and my writing has kept me afloat for so long, but it would've only been a matter of time before the obsession to solve her case, find her killer, surged up again."

He grips her hips, squeezes his eyes shut. "It doesn't matter. I sped up the process either way. I left him there alone to-"

She stops him with the press of her mouth, the bruise of her lips shutting him up long enough to tame the ragged ripping of his insides, and when she withdraws a moment later, he's able to breathe again.

"This is not your fault," she repeats on a whisper, stroking her thumb to his bottom lip as his forehead falls to rest against hers, allowing them both a moment of reprieve. "None of it. Now, let's go lie down."

"Kate," he murmurs before she can stray from him, splaying his hands at her back and pursing his lips, garnering his resolve. "I can be better than this. I can be – good for you, not just-"

"Castle," she sighs, palming his cheek, abrading her skin on the stubble of his jaw. "You're already good to me. Perfect for me."

"I made you cry twice in twelve hours," he grumbles, squeezing her hips, the anguish leaching from his fingers into her bones before he lets her go. "We - you deserve better from me."

"We're going to hurt each other, Rick," she murmurs, brushing her thumb back and forth along his cheekbone. "It's inevitable. But we'll work through it. We have to, because I'm not giving this up."

His eyes slip open, resolve flashing like lightning through his guts, the streaks of certainty a balm to the jagged edges their fight had left. "Me neither."

"At least we're even I suppose," she shrugs, managing a smirk as his eyes roll, and that somehow seems to put her at ease too, infuses a brief moment of normalcy amidst far too much tragedy for one day.

"What I did was marginally worse."

"Oh, it's a competition now?"

He huffs, but the lift of her mouth works, has his quirking into a small smile for her.

"Enough now," she adds on a sigh, rising nudging her nose to his cheek before disentangling from him, and he concedes on a nod, leads her to his room.

* * *

She's exhausted, battered from the last 24 hours, but she lies within the cove of his body until he finally drifts to sleep, one arm around her waist, the other curled at her back to bury his hand in her hair. Protective in a way she recognizes, vulnerable in a way she doesn't.

It's so easy to forget that he's not quite as confident in himself as a man as he is a cop, trusts himself more with a gun cradled in his hands than he does when it's her heart in his palms; he forgot how to love without pain the day his daughter died, just like she did after she buried her mom.

Kate tries to close her eyes, wills the images of her mother from her mind, Montgomery, the soundtrack of gunshots in the night. She tucks her head beneath Rick's chin and presses her cheek to his chest, seeks the lullaby of his heartbeat with her ear.

He loves her, seems to have fallen just as deeply in love with her as she has with him throughout this past year, and it still scares her – how visceral it is, always has been, if she's honest with herself. His ability to consume her, confound her, invigorate and devastate her within the same moment.

They could be so bad for each other. But it failed to trump the good.

Oh, they were _so_ good.

Castle's arm tightens around her and his chest expands, trembles with what she's sure is another nightmare. It's only been a couple of hours since they had crawled beneath his sheets, but he's already woken shaking and out of breath once, choking on a scream.

Kate unfurls one of her arms to snake along his waist, brushing her fingers up and down the tension lining his spine, tracing words along his vertebrae, until it slowly begins to unravel and she can feel his breath evening out, can hear his heart calming beneath her cheek.

A love like theirs would be far from easy, it would be brutal at times, difficult and devastating, it would demand so much from both of them; it required more, but she still holds to the belief that he's worth it, that a love like theirs could also be extraordinary.

* * *

She remains perched on his bed while he dresses in his uniform short days later, his hat and gloves in her lap, his badge between her fingers. Kate had woken before him, drew him out of bed after her with the soft noise of the shower from his bathroom, and slipped into the fitted black dress she'd brought with her last night after they'd stopped by her place.

He's not used to seeing her looking so severe, swathed in all black with her hair in a bun at her nape, her eyes so sad and the smudges of purple beneath unhidden by her makeup. He wonders if this was how she looked on the day of her mother's funeral too.

"Castle?" she murmurs when she notices him simply standing before the mirror, his hands motionless at his sides and his collar still undone.

She rises from the edge of his bed, stepping into her heels before she approaches him, gently turns him around with a hand on his shoulder and lifts her slender fingers to his shirt.

"How am I supposed to speak up there?" he croaks, trying to clear his throat of its terrible rasp, closing his eyes as Kate strokes her thumb to his adam's apple.

"You went over your speech with me last night," she reminds him, straightening the crisp black collar, brushing her hand along the emblems of his uniform. "It's perfect and I'll be right there with you. If you get caught up, just look at me."

He cups her shoulders in his palms and drops his forehead to hers, screws his eyes shut harder until explosions of color begin to burst through the darkness.

The cool touch of her fingertips grazing his cheeks has the tension that lines every inch of his body softening just slightly, his eyes peeling open, opening into hers.

"Here." Her fingers snag in his, prying them open to press something into his palm, hard metal warmed by her touch, the shape familiar. Alexis's blue butterfly keychain. "Didn't want you to forget it."

She's going to make him fall apart before they can even leave the apartment.

"Kate," he rasps, but she lifts her empty hand to his face, strokes her thumb to his lips.

"Come on, I made you a coffee, some toast," she murmurs, tilting her head to kiss the corner of his mouth, her lips like butterfly wings dusting along his skin, soothing the spin of his head.

Today was going to be brutal, Montgomery's funeral was going to be gut-wrenching, but somehow, he thinks, Kate has already managed to ease the agony.

* * *

Beckett remains at his side through the church service, does her best not to cry anymore, her grief already emptied out onto that hangar floor where Montgomery had died; she hated funerals, wishes she could take Castle's hand and whisk him away to Coney Island for the rest of the day like she and her father had when the melancholy of her mother's burial had begun to weigh too heavy on them both.

But just as she provides Rick with her silent support, he does the same for her, remaining a pillar of strength at her side, failing to venture far from it until they arrived at the cemetery and the time to bury Roy came upon them.

Castle was a pallbearer and she was going to be sitting with the Montgomery family, next to Evelyn in the front row, and he squeezes her hand as they exit the car together. Kate adjusts his hat, mustering a pursed lipped smile for him, a vote of confidence for the speech he had to give, that had left him choking back his grief last night in his living room when he had read it aloud to her.

"You've got this," she whispers, refusing to allow her gaze to flicker to the arriving hearse, the coffin with a man she had loved like a father inside.

Castle nods and releases her hand, his chest expanding with a deep breath as he prepares to join Ryan and Esposito, and she turns in the grass, sucks in a breath of her own before she starts for the rows of seats.

She's barely made it two steps when a distinct flash of light amidst the headstones catches her eye, her brow furrowing at the glimmer that flickers once, twice, and then the distinct crackle of a gunshot breaks through the air and she knew.

"Kate!"

Beckett spins, right into the rush of Castle's body wrapping around her, tackling her to the ground.

The breath rushes from her lungs and her ribs sing with pain, a firecracker splitting up her side in unison with the blow of the fall to her back, and - and oh, she needs to get up, needs to check on Castle, make sure he's okay-

"Kate," he gets out and her eyes push open, squinting against the fierce glare of the sun to see him staggering onto his knees above her, crumpling back down, the weight of his chest on her shoulder, before he can rise.

His white glove is spotted with stains of red.

And there's so much yelling, screaming, Esposito's voice cutting through her ears.

"Castle and Beckett are down! Both are down!"

 _Both_?

"Rick," she gasps, shifting beneath him, onto the side that hurts less, her vision going black for a moment before she can see him, the pale skin of his face, the faltering flicker of his eyes, and oh god, he had been shot because of her. "No, no, Castle," she chokes, her hand trembling, the stretch of her arm tugging on whatever is splintering her ribs to pieces, and clinging to the back of his neck. "Don't - please not you. Please stay with me, don't leave me-"

"Not - not leaving," he mumbles, and she can feel it now, the hot spill of blood from his body onto hers. "Won't leave you."

" _Castle_ ," she moans softly, squeezing his neck as his eyes close, forcing them to flash open, but only for a second, his lashes fluttering before they're descending back to his cheeks again. "No, come on, stay with me. Just stay with me."

"With you," he slurs, but his skin is only growing paler, his lips adopting a faint shade of blue, and the searing ache in her side is beginning to spread, threatening to send her fading into unconsciousness right along with him. "Love you, Kate."

Shadows were dancing above the both of them, the rush of footsteps and shouts of voices growing closer, yet muffling further from her mind, and Kate feels her eyes begin to slide to the sky before she can stop them, the brilliant shade of blue the last thing she sees. It reminds her of his eyes.


	19. Chapter 19

Something soft grazes his cheek, the kiss of a feather, but he can't open his eyes to witness the source, to see the wing it belongs to. All he can do is float through the darkness, try not to choke on the stuffing down his throat, the stone sitting atop his chest.

"Oh, Richard."

Not a bird, his mother. Oh, he forgot to call his mother.

He needs to apologize for that, explain all that had happened since their reconciliation at Kate's book party and… something about Kate he needed to fix too. Something was wrong with her and he couldn't open his eyes, make sure she's okay.

The feathering dusts down his cheek, skirts his neck, his shoulder, squeezing ever so gently.

"Keep fighting, darling."

Fighting? He's so tired of fighting, so tired.

* * *

He isn't sure when they had taken him off the vent, only that it had felt like fire being dragged up his throat and he'd been in and out ever since, waking in confused hazes to a nurse murmuring to him as she changed his IV, to light bleeding through the blinds of his hospital room, and now, to a bout of arguing in the entryway.

"Mr. Beckett," a woman snaps, exasperated, and… _Mr. Beckett_? Kate's father? Why would her dad be - oh, oh god. "As I've told you before, we only allow family members of the patient-"

"I don't know if you've met my daughter," the unfamiliar voice sighs, but Rick isn't listening to the words, peeling his eyes open with a wince and gritting his teeth against the rippling ache that sears through his chest as he swallows.

Morphine must be wearing off.

"Oh, trust me, we've all met her," the woman - a doctor, he thinks, or a nurse, perhaps? - states dryly and Castle braces his elbows to the surface of the bed beneath him, tries to push up into a sitting position, regrets it.

"Mr. Castle," the woman huffs as he hisses in pain, collapses back into his pillow as his chest burns so brightly he sees stars without closing his eyes, feels his sternum splitting in two. "What do you think you're doing?"

"K-Kate," he gets out, her name scraping along the raw path of his throat, but he breathes past it, breathes until the black spots dissipate and he can see the disgruntled woman in scrubs - a nurse then - adjusting his IV, increasing the dosage of pain management he's sure.

"Ms. Beckett has been stable since early this morning, Detective," his nurse informs him, stepping back with a sigh. "And in her moments of coherency, she's persistent as hell."

"Like I said, that's my daughter," the older man still standing in the doorway chimes in with a twitch of his lips, a quirk Castle often recognizes in Kate. "Must be special, never seen Katie so demanding before."

"Special?" Castle echoes, grunting around another swallow, relieved when his nurse takes notice, snags a cup of water from the pitcher on his bedside table, offers him a slim straw.

"She told me about you, mentioned you once during one of our Sunday lunches - the detective she was following around, but I think you know as well as I do that my daughter plays it close to the vest, doesn't want to say too much too soon," her father muses, the lines branching from his eyes, bracketing his mouth, becoming more apparent the longer Castle is awake, able to study him. He has so many questions, wants to ask her father how long it's been, what the extent of Kate's hospital stay has been like, if she suffered any serious injuries when he tackled her to the ground, but he can barely utter a word. "But Katie has that same look Johanna used to have when she was smitten, the sparkling eyes and the secret smile whenever she talks about you."

He thinks if he could blush, his ears would be burning red, but all Rick is capable of is a careful exhale at the sad smile her father gives him.

"I'm Jim Beckett, by the way, Katie's father," he announces belatedly. "Katie sent me back this way to argue on her behalf. She's dying to see you."

With his throat soothed, Castle licks his lips, pushes the question past. "She's okay?"

Jim hesitates and Rick's damaged heart picks up speed, bumping into bruised bones and pieces inside his chest that must still be under construction, a spearing sensation resonating through his sternum with every beat.

The nurse begins to approach in exasperation. "Detective Castle-"

"Calm down, son," Jim placates softly, his eyes darting to the heart monitor that accelerates with his anxiety. "She's okay, just… not at her best. I'm sure it's your doctor's job to fill you in, but you both took the same bullet and Katie is-"

"She was _shot_?" he rasps, his chest caving in on itself. "No, no, I - I pushed her out of the way, I tried to-"

"I know, I know," Jim concedes, stepping further into the room with a hand raised to quiet him. "She told me, it was all she remembered. And if it weren't for you, her injuries would be far worse, if not fatal. I owe you… everything, Detective Castle."

"Rick," he corrects on a breath, his head spinning, everything threatening to blur once more, but no, he needs to see her, to know- "Where's she?"

"Her room is down the hall," Jim sighs, shooting a pointed look to the nurse. "But don't worry, Rick, by the time you wake up, I'm sure my daughter will have found her way back to you."

Castle hums, tries so hard to fight the fall of his eyes, but the pull of drugs and darkness is too strong, and all he can hope for is that Jim Beckett is right.

* * *

"This goes against company policy." His nurse is always so grumpy, the irritated grumble of her voice always reeling him into consciousness, and he furrows his brow, wishes she - and that annoying squeaking sound - would go away. "And if the chief of staff wasn't a fan-"

"I got it, Beth," another voice, a familiar one - _very_ familiar - replies on a trembling breath, growing closer. "Just bill me extra for it."

"Money can't buy everything, Ms. Beckett," Beth, apparently, mutters and Castle slides his eyes open at the confirmation of her presence, blinks past the grit of drugs and a deep slumber and searches for her. "Like I told your father, policy states that only family members are allowed-"

"She is my family," he grunts from the hospital bed, his back quivering with the words, the slow breath he expels, but he forces himself to turn his head, to find her hospital bed being adjusted beside his, and feels something inside his broken chest shift back into place. "Kate's my family."

Kate musters a smile for him from her side, propped against the slightly elevated head of her hospital bed, fragile and pale and so gorgeous he could cry.

"You two are ridiculous," Beth huffs, but he swears he hears a hint of something gentle in her voice as she leaves. But he doesn't have the time, the energy, to analyze it; his attention is stuck on Kate, on the way she has her knees curled up, on the vivid streaks of purple beneath her eyes, the waxiness of her skin.

"Your back?" he realizes aloud, watching her frail smile begin to crumble with confirmation. "I thought… god, I thought I pushed you out of the way."

"Hate you for that," she mumbles, her words nothing more than a whisper, weaker, but at least she was talking. At least she was breathing.

"I know," he sighs, carefully, feeling the guilt leak through his lungs. "Wasn't fast enough-"

"No," she groans under her breath, pursing her lips as her eyes glimmer with moisture in the dull light of his hospital room. "For taking the bullet, Castle. Wasn't for you."

His mouth dries up. "Beck-"

"Can't do this now," she rasps, flicking her eyes to the twin IV that had been dragged in with her. "But don't ever do that to me again, Castle." Her eyes fall shut for a blink, but even as he witnesses them move beneath her lids, she fails to open them again. "Not you too."

A flash of a memory strikes him, her body crumpled beneath him, clinging to him even as he collapsed on top of her in the grass, begging him to stay.

 _Not you._

"With you, Kate," he murmurs, even though her breathing has steadied and she's succumb to sleep in the bed she managed to bribe into being parked beside him. "Always."

* * *

She's close enough to touch him, but her body rebels at the thought of stretching her arm across the few inches of space between them, the pain radiating through her back livid, lacking the proper dosage of medication at her insistence. And continuous habit of unhooking her IV.

The nurse she and Castle share - Beth - is going to kill her before she's cleared to leave the hospital, she's sure of it.

Kate grits her teeth despite it all, gingerly slips her hand from the edge of her hospital bed to hook her fingers in the sheets of his, exhaling in soft victory when her digits graze the top of his hand.

He's unconscious, fading in and out of sleep since she was wheeled in last night, and she's careful not to wake him, disturb him, knowing he needs the rest. His injuries were far more severe than hers - a bullet to the chest, a lung that'd had to be reinflated, bone fragments like shrapnel embedded within his sternum. Meanwhile, she lies beside him with a bullet hole in her back, an exit wound through her chest, that had missed any and all organs and arteries.

She wishes they could trade, wishes she could claim the damage that had been meant for her body and bestowed up his. It wasn't fair like this, dug deeper into her wound to watch him lying in a hospital bed he had no business occupying.

"Thought I told you," he rasps, one of his eyes flickering open to peer at her. "Staring's creepy."

His hand twitches beneath hers before he turns it over, curls his fingers over hers, but she can't manage even a hint of a smile for him this time.

"Stop it, Kate," he mumbles, earning the attention of her gaze, the furrow of her brow. "Feel you thinking," he explains, his throat working with a thick swallow. "Blaming yourself."

"After all this... bet you regret it," she gets out, slipping her tongue past her lips to dampen the chapped flesh, ease the ache of speaking. "Letting me follow you around, letting it be... personal."

His eyes, hazy and grey, steadily begin to clear, sharpen to a shade reminiscent of the brilliant blue hues she knows well, the assessing gaze of a detective staring back at her.

"When did I ever agree to any of that?" Castle counters, managing a weak quirk of an eyebrow, but gently squeezing her hand. "Nothing could make me regret you, Beckett. Do it all over again if I had to and the only difference is that I would've given into you sooner."

"You really are on the good drugs if you're saying that," she muses, but her mouth is dry, her tongue too heavy, and her eyes are stinging. "I wish I could crawl in with you," is all that comes out next, not at all what she had intended, but the truth nonetheless.

"If we weren't both so badly physically impaired right now, I'd make it happen," he murmurs, stroking his thumb along the bone of hers, calming her stumbling pulse and clogging throat. "When we're released."

"No word from Ryan and Espo on the shooter yet," she sighs, biting down on her abused bottom lip. "I don't want to stay in the city, not like this."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "A certain getaway you had in mind?"

"Are you feeling the beach house or a cabin getaway?" she hums, threading her fingers unevenly through his, feeling her back begin to protest fiercely at the positioning of her arm, but refusing to draw it back.

Castle sighs out, winces at the rise and fall of his chest, and closes his eyes. "Surprise me."


	20. Chapter 20

Castle combs his fingers through her hair, ignoring the persistent tug in his chest with every stroke of his hand, every movement of his arm. Her head is on his chest, the good side, and the heat of her palm rests atop his still healing scar, the length of her body draped along his side.

Beckett grunts when he shifts on the sofa, one of her legs falling between his, and he steadies her with the mimicked touch of his hand over the wound at her back, a seal to the excruciating pain.

"This is possibly the worst movie marathon ever," Kate mumbles, turning her face into his shoulder, sighing softly into the sleeve of his shirt, but he brushes his hand down her back, caresses the cage of her ribs before he slips his fingers beneath the fabric of her loose sweater.

"Not how we planned it," he concedes as their second John Woo movie plays out on the screen of her laptop that's set up on her father's coffee table. "But not bad."

She hums, presses her nose to his collarbone while his hand travels up the bare line of her spine, his palm flattening over the circle of raised flesh along her right shoulder blade. If she were to align her body over his, their scars would meet, show the story in their correlation.

"Lying out in the sun earlier zapped all my energy," she mumbles, tilting her chin to touch her lips to his neck.

"Pretty sure it was physical therapy that zapped all your energy," he corrects, using his opposite hand to reach for her waist, squeeze her hip in warning when she opens her mouth at his throat. "Beckett. Not only are we not cleared for that, but your dad could-"

She curses into his skin, her lashes fluttering at his jaw as she lifts her eyes, her head, to glare at him.

"I should have chosen the Hamptons."

"Still would have to be supervised," he muses, drawing the hand at her waist back up to cover the fingers curling in his t-shirt. "We're only a month and a half out and knowing my mother, she would have jumped at the opportunity for a free beach getaway."

Kate's irritation momentarily dissipates at the mention of his mother, still so ridiculously pleased by their reconciliation, by how often his mother drives up to her father's cabin to check in with them both and reconnect with her son.

"Did you talk to her this morning?" she asks, propping her chin atop his sternum and meeting his gaze, concern flickering in the soft hues of amber and green.

Those first few weeks, her eyes had been so dark, jaded with pain and paranoia, flaring open in the middle of the night from a nightmare or going wide in the middle of the day courtesy of a sharp sound from outside. Being a cop, he'd always imagined he would take a bullet, and something tells him that after her mother's murder, Kate had considered the idea of a similar fate, but neither of them could have prepared for the trauma that comes with it.

"Yeah, while you were out. Treatment's going well, she's having fun with the wigs and wants to bring some over next time. She says she needs your opinion on which to wear most often," he murmurs, tangling his fingers in her hair once more.

His mother had been desperate to see him at Kate's book party, desperate enough to risk everything, because she had admittedly feared she may not have a chance to again after being diagnosed with cancer. But the doctors had caught the Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the early stages and while aggressive, the intensive chemotherapy was working, producing positive results. And it scares the shit out of him every waking moment, the idea of losing his mother too, but for the first time, he feels hopeful.

"We could still go to the Hamptons, you know. Finish out our recovery there, offer our parents a mini vacation," she suggests, biting down on her bottom lip while her brow rises. "By two months, we'll be able to do more... activities."

He huffs when her eyebrows dance, bending his arm to stroke his thumb to the edge of her socket, her cheek. "You make everything so dirty."

"I was simply talking about spending time on the beach, Detective. Where was _your_ mind?" she scoffs, turning her head to catch the tip of his finger with the brush of her upturned lips.

Without Kate Beckett, he thinks his recovery would be utter and brutal hell. He wouldn't be smiling like he is right now, that's for sure.

"The beach sounds nice," he mumbles, the blanket of her body soothing his limbs into relaxation, and curves his palm at the back of her neck out of habit. "Great dysfunctional family vacation spot."

Kate chuckles, one of her shoulders shrugging. "This was always my family's spot. I bought the place in the Hamptons when I got my first big paycheck for 'Gathering Storm'."

Castle perks up a little, always intrigued to hear about her writing, her past, but a tiny knot of dread begins to form in the pit of his stomach at the mention of her family, the sentimental value of this place. "Your dad doesn't mind having me here, does he? I mean, obviously, he's been great, but if the cabin is a place that matters to the two of you, a place just for family, I would completely under-"

"According to my dad, you're family too," she murmurs, silencing his rambling with the stroke of her fingers through his hair, tracing the shell of his ear, and mm, that feels nice. "Back to three again, just like… we were. A family of elephants."

Her hand goes still at his jaw.

"Did you actually take your medication for a change, Beckett?" he hedges, attempting to garner her attention with a tease, but her lips are parting as her brow creases, something connecting behind her eyes.

"My mom, she - she had these elephants, the ones in my office, on my desk."

Castle nods slowly, the image of her desk and the small parade of elephants she's always kept close flashing through his mind, but he can't comprehend why she appears so rattled by the recollection of a set of figurines.

"After she died, I combed through everything she left behind, and in her day planner..." Kate grits her teeth and attempts to sit up, her heart pounding hard against his chest. "Castle, I think my mom left evidence in my elephants."

* * *

She finds him camped out in the sand at the water's edge, the throw blanket from their bedroom around his shoulders and his face lifted towards the grey skies of morning. They've been at the Hamptons for a week, the two of them healing well and the gunshot wounds marring their bodies nearing the mark of three months old. She knows he enjoys it here, has found solace on the beach, in the lap of waves and caress of salt air, but she's not sure there's much that could bring him contentment on a day like this.

"About time you woke up," he quips when she approaches him, stopping to stand at his side and reaching out to comb her fingers through the blonde streaks of his hair, her fingers dappling with the strands stained in sunlight. "Actually, it's still really early, isn't it?"

"Six," she murmurs, scratching along his scalp and watching his eyelids flutter. "Don't sleep well when you're gone."

"You need the rest, let's-"

Kate pushes down on his head when he begins to rise, smirks as he huffs at her.

"No, I want to be out here. You okay with company?" she asks, folding her legs beneath her when he nods and accepting the open invitation of his arm, huddling into his side with the drape of the blanket around her shoulders. "How are you?"

"I should be asking you that," Castle counters, his fingers curling at her bicep, but Kate shakes her head.

"I watched you put away the man who had my mother killed for murder last week, got the closure I'd been missing for the last eleven years, you know I'm okay."

After her revelation at the cabin, her frenzied return to the city with Castle hobbling alongside her through her apartment, steadying her when her hands shook so badly she could barely crack open the slot on the elephant's back, her hunch had led them to the discovery of a cassette tape, the truth in a recording of Roy Montgomery's voice and Senator William Bracken's captured words. One they took to Castle's new captain at the Twelfth and revealed... everything.

Despite his injuries, despite Captain Gates's displeasure at the idea, Castle had been the detective to approach Senator Bracken at his press conference and Kate had been beside him the entire time, her heart beating too hard, Rick's presence at her side one of the only things keeping her standing.

William Bracken had recognized her right away, his skin going pale and his eyes widening with subtle horror in the room filled with reporters and cameras.

"I found the tape," she had whispered before Castle could take the man's hands, cuff them behind his back. "I found it, all of it. It's over."

And when Castle had informed him of the charges, biting out the accusation of murder in her mother's name, her heart finally had caved in on itself, the shock of it, the relief, damn near proving too much.

Rick had handed the senator over to Esposito outside, the two of them following close behind down the steps of City Hall, but Bracken had resisted before they could shove him into the squad car, narrowing his gaze on Kate.

"You're lucky," Bracken had muttered under his breath. "Surviving that bullet, digging up evidence, but luck always runs out. Just like your mother's did."

Esposito had ensured the senator hit his head on their duck into the car and Castle had squeezed her hand, shaken his head.

"Don't listen to him. Only person whose luck has run out is his, Kate," he'd promised her and she had stepped into him, gentle and aware of his chest wound, of her own, buried her face in his neck until she could breathe again.

Castle had held her on the sidewalk, held her together with his embrace and pressed words of comfort into her ear. "She's proud of you. Wherever she is, she's so proud."

Her lips had quirked against his neck, watery and staining his skin. "Never would have happened without you."

She would have abstained from touching her mother's case for as long as possible without him, would have gone on without the closure, swearing she didn't need it, never thinking to suspect her mom's elephants as a clue. She never would have had him as a north star to lead her to the truth.

The morning tide rushes up to meet them, just inches short of lapping at their bare feet, and Kate glances up to him in the grey dawn, the breach of light beginning to spill through the sky. She never would have been this happy without him.

"Just because it's over doesn't mean you're okay," he argues softly, dragging her back to the source of their conversation, his thumb stroking the curve of her muscle. "Closure helps, doesn't erase."

"I don't want it to erase," she confesses, resting her forehead to the cove of his neck, closing her eyes. "Losing my mom, losing Alexis, left holes in us, but they're not gaping, not raw anymore. They're still there, they'll always be there, and I'm okay with that now, carrying her with me like you carry Alexis with you. They're a part of us and it hurts sometimes, but I don't want that to change."

His chest shudders with the inhale of his breath and Kate curves her palm at his knee, squeezes gently. Today was the anniversary of his daughter's death and she knows how easy it is to drown in the pools of grief on days like these; she only hopes to provide him with a lifeboat as he so often does for her.

"You're right," he breathes, his throat bobbing with the swallow. "I'm okay. It hurts, more than usual today, but I'm okay."

"I'm here if you're not," she murmurs, flexing her fingers when his hand trails down her arm and his palm covers her knuckles, welcome the fit of his between hers.

"I know."

She relaxes into his side as the waves make another reach for Castle's bare feet, wetting the sand only inches away, and Kate squeezes his hand as a question she had been meaning to ask rushes to her mind with the water, something she's been pondering for months now, since Martha had sashayed her way into their lives.

"You never told me about your last name," she murmurs, glancing up at him with hopeful eyes, desperate for another piece of his story, the chapters that came before her.

Rick's brow furrows, but the corner of his mouth quirks. Ah, so he's going to make her work for it. "What about my last name?"

"Martha Rodgers, Richard Castle," she drawls, states the obvious. "When did you change yours and why?"

Rick props one of his hands behind him in the sand and she watches the rising sun reflect in his eyes as they flicker with contemplation, with reminiscence.

"When I was in college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. My mother was an actress and I was considering going down the same path, enjoyed the idea of telling stories," he muses and her eyebrows arch with intrigue.

"Richard Castle, best-selling author, I could see it," she hums, imagining his picture on the jackets of books, his face on magazines and articles of him in the paper. The man she knows now would hate it, but a Richard Castle unscathed by grief and tragedy... she's almost curious.

He scoffs at her. "No. One of us in that world is enough," he chuckles, the breath of his laughter caressing her ear. "Anyway, I changed my name during my final year, thought that Castle rolled off the tongue so much better than plain, old 'Richard Rodgers'. Besides, he'd always been a nobody. Having a fresh, new name made me feel like I could have a fresh start too."

The amusement slips from her lips at the self-deprecation he plays off with a shrug, the idea of a younger version of him obviously unhappy with himself, his life, tugging at the strings of her heart, and Kate sighs, leans in and kisses his jaw.

"For the record, I favor Castle, but Richard Rodgers is just as charming, and while I may not have known you then, you'd never be a nobody to me."

"You say that now," he murmurs, but Kate shakes her head, dusts her fingertips to the lines extending from his eyes, the branches of hard work, of sorrow, of smiling, carved into his skin.

"I never believed in fate, the universe, anything like that. I still don't," she sighs, grinning as his brow falls once more into a crease, his eyes a deep blue of inquisition. "But I'd like to believe that no matter what path you or I took in life, we'd eventually end up here before it was all over and I'd always end up loving you."

Castle's straightens, banding both arms around her, tight enough to crush her lungs and quiet the uncomfortable ache laced through her incision scar, soothing the still bruised areas of her heart with the press of his.

"I'm glad you walked into that bookstore."

Kate laughs, inhales a lungful of the sea air, finally feels the warmth of the sun on her cheek and Castle's lips brushing the line of her hair.

"I'm glad Marie set you up, helped me find my inspiration again."

His eyes roll when she smirks up at him, but he looks happy. Even on the worst day of the year for him, Richard Castle is smiling at her, holding her close and leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead.

"Love you too, Kate."


	21. Chapter 21

**Epilogue**

* * *

Castle sits back in the chair with her book in his lap, the latest in the Derrick Storm series, and traces his thumb over the raised letters of her name. She had promised him the first copy, like always, and had delivered it to him this morning in their bed with his coffee and the press of her smile to his mouth.

"Rick, I'm not sure your child is going to survive the final hour," Marie sighs, shuffling into the room with Lily clinging to her neck, tired eyes fluttering open at the sight of her father.

"Hey Peanut," he chuckles, setting the book aside and rising to relieve the former bookstore owner of his three year old. "Did she wear you out too, Auntie Marie?"

Marie scoffs and waves him off. "Please, honey, if your wife keeps supplying me with that wonderful coffee she's been bringing around since she installed that espresso machine here, I can go for hours."

Marie shoots him a wink before she disappears back through the shelves, returning to the front of the store, where Kate is in the final stretch of a morning turned afternoon book signing for _Wild Storm_ , the sixth novel in the series.

"Ready for a nap, Lil?" he murmurs, returning to the armchair he'd settled in. He's been attempting to read her book all day, but their daughter was rarely a fan of having divided attention.

"No, wanna see Momma first," Lily yawns, but his little girl curls into his chest, presses her cheek flat to his collarbone. "Can you read me her book, Daddy?"

"You don't want to hear about Derrick Storm again," he murmurs, combing his fingers through her dark hair, watching Lily's eyes struggle to stay open.

"He's like you. Mommy said so," she mumbles, bringing a small fist up to rub at her eye. "Both fight the bad guys, get rid of the monsters."

"You know your mom helps with that, right?"

"Duh," Lily sighs and Rick chuckles, snuggles their daughter closer, causing the keys in his jacket to jingle. He doesn't stop her when she reaches into his pocket, fishes out the keys to their loft, the store they're sitting inside of that now consumes most of his spare time, and the two keychains he carries around with him.

A blue butterfly, a purple elephant, and Lily brushes her fingers over them both, lingers on the faded blue charm she's not yet old enough to understand the full story behind.

"Daddy, if Alexis was here, you think she'd play with me?" Lily inquires innocently, her visions of her older sister based on nothing more than stories and photos, but Kate has always encouraged the memory of Alexis, in letting Lily know about the big sister she'd never meet to the best of her ability, and Castle was grateful, so grateful to have his oldest daughter's spirit kept alive.

"Of course, Peanut," he answers easily. "And she loved to read, just like you, so this would have been a lot of fun for her."

"She would've liked Momma's books," Lily sighs, grinning down at the keychains before tucking them back into his pocket.

Castle smiles down at his little girl, hugs her a little tighter when she plops back against his chest. "I have no doubt."

Never would he have fathomed having children again. After Alexis, he had sworn against it, never wanting to be a father to anyone else, never wanting to risk the trauma that came with losing a child again, but well, Kate Beckett had the tendency to make him want things he never would have considered before.

But despite conceding to the idea of children before he'd married her on the beach of their Hamptons home, Lily had been a surprise that had come shortly after their second wedding anniversary.

"How long 'til Momma's done?" Lily asks, squirming in his lap to sit up straighter, and he hears the click of heels before he has to provide an answer.

"Not long at all." Lily gasps and spins her head to catch her mother's smile, hopping down from Castle's lap to scramble towards her. "Getting impatient, Peanut?"

Kate hoists Lily into her arms and smacks a loud kiss to her cheek that has their daughter giggling.

"More like sleepy," Castle corrects, standing once more to join his girls, placing his hand on Kate's waist and leaning forward just enough to press his lips to her head. "How much longer do you have? Book party's in only a few hours."

"Just a few more in line and then we can head home, squeeze in a nap for Lily," she murmurs, rubbing their daughter's back, straightening the fabric of her sundress before easing her to the ground. "Why don't you go pick out a book for Daddy to read you? It'll make the time fly by."

"Okay!" Lily chirps, skipping over to the children's section with a rejuvenated grin.

"And while Lily's napping, you and I can fit in a quick nap as well before we have to get ready," Kate hums, lacing her arms around his neck, and Castle huffs, but kisses her when she brushes her smile to his lips. "Read my book yet?"

"Does it look like our child has allowed me to read your book?" he parrots with a smirk. "I can read it tonight, after the party."

"You'll be busy after the party, trust me," she states, her grin grazing his cheek.

"I'm grateful the store is closed on Sundays," he sighs, splaying his palms at the small of her back, bridging his fingers at the base of her spine. "We can sleep in tomorrow, I can start your book in bed."

"I couldn't imagine a more appropriate setting," Kate chuckles, unwinding her arms to drape her hands along his chest. "I'm going to head back so I can wrap it up. Marie can only entertain them for so long."

"Good luck," he smirks, drifting back towards the armchair he'd been nestled in with Lily when Kate turns to leave, snagging her book from the edge of the coffee table and flipping through the pages, pausing at the dedication he'd failed to read.

That page was normally the first he sought, but their day had been busy from the second they awoke that morning and he greedily scans his eyes over the words now, feels his heart trip, stumble, and swell. It's been years and Kate Beckett still fills his chest with butterflies, still elicits a smile no one else can, and he sucks in a breath to calm the earnest beat of his heart, closes the book.

 _To the extraordinary RC,_

 _Every day with you is an adventure._

He's grown accustomed to her dedications being allocated to him, the sole exception being the year Lily was born, but it wraps like an embrace of warmth around him each time he opens one of her novels, reads words that are solely meant for him.

"Kate."

She pauses just before she can turn the corner, glances back to him with an inquisitive rise of an eyebrow, and Castle strides up to her, cradles her face in his palms and presses a kiss to her mouth that she sighs into. And he wants to tell her everything, things he's told her before in the middle of the nights when the words come to him without trouble, whispered into her hair or against her skin, things he can't put into words at all. He wants to remind her once more about how she was right from the start, how it was all worth it, how every maddening, frustrating moment was worth this remarkable outcome. He wants to reinforce the fact that he may have inspired her latest series of novels, but she inspired him to live again.

But it's all too much, an overwhelming swell through his chest, so he says the one thing he knows, the words that slip past his words as easy as breathing.

"I love you."

The smile that blooms on her lips beneath his is all the answer he needs.

"I love you too, Castle," she murmurs, covering his hand on her cheek. "Always have. Always will."

* * *

 _"And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you."_

 _-Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars_

* * *

 **A/N: Words will never express how grateful I am to anyone who took the time to read this story or how much I appreciate every review, tweet, and message I've received regarding it. The kindness, support, and general loveliness means more than you know, thank you. I also owe a huge amount of gratitude to Nadia for the absolutely stunning cover art, and to Alex and Evan, who made the journey of writing of this story all the more special.**

 **Until next time.**


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